


Dark Enough (To See The Stars)

by wolfrider89 (rustypeopleskillz)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Gen, Kid Fic, M/M, Post Swan Song, Pre-Slash, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-20
Updated: 2012-11-23
Packaged: 2017-11-19 08:28:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 24,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/571235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rustypeopleskillz/pseuds/wolfrider89
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU after Swan Song. After having exhausted every possibility he can think of in an effort to rescue Sam from hell, Dean loses himself in sex and alcohol. Then one of his one night stands calls him up and tells him she's pregnant. Suddenly, his mission in life is to convince her to let him have the kid. Meanwhile, Castiel is fighting his way through hell in order to get to Sam, and the only thing keeping him going is the sound of Dean's prayers in his head. That is, until they stop.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2012 Dean/Castiel Big Bang. 
> 
> I think this is the most gen fic I've ever written! That does not mean that it can't be read as clear pre-slash, it just means that I'm used to writing more explicit stuff than this. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it! 
> 
> Crossposted to my [LJ](http://wolfrider89.livejournal.com/91967.html).

  
_It's okay, Dean. It's okay._

_Sam closes his eyes and spreads his arms wide. Something like serenity crosses his face, and then he's falling. Doing the right thing. Saving everything._

_Falling._

¤¤¤

Everything Dean does, he does in a haze of alcohol. He finds himself in bars without any memory of how he got there, a bottle of whiskey in his hand and a woman hanging on his arm. Another faceless woman in a long, long line. He never bothers to remember their names if they tell them to him; just takes them out to the alley, back to his current motel, his car, their place, the parking lot. The whiskey follows him wherever he goes, a constant, comforting companion in the passenger seat, a familiar weight in his hand, and he drinks while he drives, before he fucks, while he walks.

Sometimes there are fights. Dean is usually the one who starts them, but he can never remember why, and there are almost always more of them than there are of him. His knuckles are constantly scabbed over, his ribs tender, but he still wins, mostly. That doesn't stop him from getting arrested, though, spending the night in the drunk tank and being driven out of town the next day. _Don't come back,_ they say. As if he would.

Somewhere deep inside, somewhere he doesn't acknowledge, he knows that Lisa was right to throw him out. He keeps going, though, keeps drinking and fucking and fighting, never stopping to think, never slowing down. At the end of the night, he collapses into bed face first, a bottle or two following him to help stave off those first horrible minutes of wakefulness and near-sobriety the next morning.

It's not like it matters, anyway.

¤¤¤

_Fire tears at Castiel's wings. No, not fire. Ice. Burning ice. Or is it electric? There are too many sensations, too much pain to be certain, but he doesn't turn back, doesn't hesitate. He sneaks past demons, fighting the ingrained urge to_ smite _when their stench reaches him. His grace shudders at leaving them alive, behind his back, but he has more important things to do._

 _He hears Dean praying for him, hears his voice broken by tears and slurred by alcohol, and his resolve wavers. But no, this is_ for _Dean. This is to heal the break, to stop him from feeling like he can't go on. This is the task Castiel has assigned himself, and he will see it through._

_Sam is much deeper than Dean was. Castiel travels through a space of nothing but screams, noise so loud it shrivels feathers off his wings. He wades through a lake of liquid bones, feels the souls wrap around his legs and tug, begging for him to save them, to kill them, _anything._ Deeper and deeper he travels, until he can't remember why he's there or what he's doing._

__Please, Cas. I just need a friendly face. Please. __

_He remembers again. He goes on._

_The only thing that keeps him sane is the sound of Dean's voice ringing in his ears, clear and bright, even this far down. The betrayal he can read in it urges him on, makes him long to return to Dean's side, to assure him that he hasn't abandoned him, that everything will be all right. But the only way it will be all right is if Castiel goes on._

_Dean stops praying to him around the time Castiel reaches the Cage._

¤¤¤

Dean gasps awake, his lungs feeling compressed like they can't take in enough air. His hands ache where they're clutching the sheets too hard, his nails digging into the fabric with enough force that he feels it in his palms. He's sweaty, his heart slamming against his ribs like it wants to get out, and he can't really blame it.

It was Sam, this time. It usually is, in one way or another. The sight of his little brother closing his eyes and falling into the Pit has almost overridden his memories of Hell and what Dean did there.

Almost.

Every ten nights or so, torture and razors and screams replace the feel of Sam's fists beating into his face, as if to remind him of what he did, of what he is. Of what he'll always be.

Cas never shows up in his dreams, not even the hint of a trench coat to alleviate the terror, just like he didn’t show up when Dean prayed for him the first few months after Stull Cemetery. It's just one more form of abandonment, and Dean doesn't have anything left in him to care with, so he just...doesn't.

The glass whiskey bottle makes a dragging sound as he pulls it off the nightstand.

¤¤¤

_The Cage was designed to keep an archangel locked inside it for all eternity, and the power imbued in its walls is enough to make Castiel's wings start carrying him away before he can stop himself. No one is meant to visit the Cage; no one is meant to open it, to extract a human who isn't even supposed to be there. Castiel has to force himself to look at it, to assess the situation and formulate a strategy._

_The task isn't made any easier by the presence of two archangels just beyond the boundary of the Cage, their power and light shining through in a way that is felt all the way to Earth. It’s what made it possible for Castiel to find this place, but it’s also what's making him want to leave so much that it hurts._

_He only ever met Lucifer once before the Fall, and he remembers how shining and righteous he was, how powerful and charismatic. He remembers how much Michael loved him. It was something everyone knew but no one talked about: The archangels were closer than they were supposed to be, than what the rest of the Host was allowed to be. They were the first, and that connected them almost as much as the presence of God in their minds did._

_He thinks that Michael might be happier down here, in the Cage with Lucifer, than he has been since the Fall. If only they would leave the two humans in their power alone, Castiel might have come and gone without anyone noticing._

_But no. Lucifer is still the Devil, and Michael is still an angel, and Sam and Adam's agony radiates through Castiel like something burning._

_The fact that there are two archangels in a Cage only meant for one is what does it, in the end. Their power masks his own long enough for him to reach through and pull Sam's struggling body out. He's ready to fly away in triumph when he senses something wrong and takes a closer look._

_There's no soul in Sam's body. They're still connected, but it's not inside him. He follows the thread back through to the Cage, snatching the soul up just as Lucifer throws it away, and for a second his wings are caressed by the Devil. It doesn't hurt; it doesn't even feel_ wrong. _It's just warm and more powerful than he can cope with._

_Adam's soul cries out for him as he flees, but he can't do anything, can't see or feel or be anything other than the power that caressed him. He's lucky he has such a firm grip on Sam, or he would have left him behind as well._

¤¤¤

Dean isn't more than half-conscious when he gets the phone call. The empty bottles in his bed make a clinking chorus of protests when he moves to find his cell, buried in the sheets. He wonders why he still bothers to keep it charged. It's not like there’s anyone he wants to talk to. Anyone alive, anyway.

His hands are clammy when he brings the phone to his ear and grunts a greeting, and then he zones out, trying to fight down the sense of panic mornings always bring him. Then something the voice on the other end says makes him react.

“What do you mean, 'pregnant'?” he slurs, frowning at the carpet and trying to decide if he has enough energy to walk to the table. There are only three more bottles there. He's gonna have to go shopping soon.

There's a loud snort in his ear, and he remembers that he's talking to a girl. Woman. He should probably remember her name. Chloe? Clara? Chastity? No, never Chastity.

“I mean 'pregnant' as in 'you knocked me up,' moron,” she says, and her voice is too loud. Dean winces, holds the phone away from his ear and glares at it. When he puts it back, Chloe or Clara is still talking. “And what kind of cheap-ass condoms did you use, anyway?” She's upset, Dean's recognizes. He wonders if he should be upset too. Can't really find it in himself to care.

“Clara, I don’t know,” he says, looking longingly at the bottles. Wait. Pregnant. “You're really pregnant?”

“It's Carla, asshole, and yes, I'm _pregnant._ ” She says it slowly, like he's too stupid to understand. “I went to the doctor and everything,” she adds with a bitter twist to her words. “I just wanted to let you know how much of a stupid fuck you've been before I get rid of it. I'm surprised you gave me your real number, but I guess you were too drunk to make something up.”

There's something wrong in Dean's chest. The words “get rid of it” drill a hole right through him, making it impossible to breathe, to think, to do anything except sit there as the words bounce around in his body. _Get rid of it_. He clutches his phone so hard the plastic creaks. _Get rid of it._ The muscles in his legs are twitching, whether from alcohol withdrawal or lack of use, he's not sure. _Get rid of it._ His ears are buzzing, drowning out whatever Carla is saying now.

“Don't get rid of it,” he says, the sudden reality of the situation making his voice no more than a strained whisper.

¤¤¤

_Dragging Sam out of hell is heavy. That's the only word that comes to mind as Castiel tugs and heaves not just Sam's soul but his body over plains so vast that they make despair creep into any sentient being that dwells there. Sam struggles, doesn't recognize him, wants to go back to the cage and back to Dean in about equal measures. Sometimes Castiel thinks Sam doesn't know the difference. He wonders what Michael and Lucifer did to him, how long he was there, if there's enough mind left in Sam for Castiel to heal. Wonders what will happen to Adam now that he's alone in there with them._

_They burst into reality on a sunny afternoon, dead leaves and twigs scattering up into the air with the force of their landing. Castiel protects Sam's body with his own, his wings curling around them both even though they are damaged beyond repair, feathers raining down around them, bursting into flame as they hit the ground. Castiel screams like he hasn't let himself do since he entered Hell, screams and screams and screams, clamping suddenly corporeal hands over Sam's ears to protect him as much as he can. He's grateful Sam is unconscious._

_He screams until he passes out._

¤¤¤

It takes some work to convince Carla that he isn't a) a pro-lifer, b) some sort of psychotic pedophile, or c) kidding. She tells Dean, in no uncertain terms, that no kid of hers will spend even a moment in his presence. Something about falling asleep from too much tequila before some people were even finished. As Dean sobers up just a tiny bit, but not touching the bottles on the table because this is suddenly _important_ , his ears burn at the implication. He used to be good at that part; it was one of the few things he was good at, and now he falls asleep in the middle of it? It's a distant feeling, though, easily ignored. What's _not_ easy to ignore is the way Carla refuses to budge even a little.

“And you're an alcoholic asshole who sleeps with strange women. What kind of a father would that make?” she asks, and he doesn't comment on how some of those attributes sounds disturbingly like his own dad. He suspects that wouldn't earn him any points. “Plus, you know, there's the part where this was a _one night stand._ People don't just up and have babies with their one night stands. Well, okay, I guess some might, but not me. And certainly not you.”

He has to tell her, Dean thinks. It's the only way he'll keep her from hanging up, as she's threatened to do at least three times now. Dean might have felt proud of being so smooth a talker as to keep her from doing it every time, but it's mostly desperation. Pride isn’t something he's capable of anymore.

So he tells her. He tells her about Sam.

“I lost my brother a few months ago.” Such an inadequate description of an event that saved Earth and destroyed Dean's world. He has to clear his throat before he can go on. “He was all the family I had, the only one left.” _Family doesn't end with blood, boy._ “I practically raised him. And ever since, I've been...” Trying to find a way to save him. Wishing to die. Wondering if he could find Sam in Hell if he killed himself. Praying for a friendly face. Ignoring Bobby's calls. Giving up. Drinking. “A little lost. But I can't stand the idea of you getting rid of this kid. I might not be the best dad ever, but I do have experience with kids, and...” A memory of Sam, gap-toothed and grinning as he begged Dean to let him have just one more cookie, forces its way to the surface. Dean is gripping the sheets so hard it hurts, his eyes closed as if that will keep the memories out, when Carla speaks.

“I'm not saying yes,” she says, her voice a little less hard than it was. “I'm sure as _hell_ not saying yes, but I'm gonna give you a chance, okay? You prove to me you can stay sober, starting _now,_ and we'll talk about it.”

Dean throws the bottle in his bed into the trash.

¤¤¤

_Sam can't seem to stop screaming. His throat is raw with it, his voice almost gone, and he wants to ask Castiel where they are, how they got there, but he can't stop screaming. The grass feels like blades against his back, Castiel's hand on his chest like it weighs a hundred pounds, and the light is too bright, too real._

_He remembers pain. Michael and Lucifer. Poor Adam. The Cage. Every humiliation and torture method anyone could ever think of. Some that no one could. Mixed with that, though, are long pieces of silence, of comfort and disquieting tenderness. Just when he thinks he can't take anymore, it stops. His tormentor becomes his friend. He lets himself believe, because what other choice does he have? And then, right when he thinks he might be able to live with it all, the pain starts again._

_Castiel is saying something, his voice hoarse and too low for Sam to hear over his own screams. He wants to lift his arms, wants to grab Castiel's shoulders just so he has something to hold on to, but all he can do is scream. Scream, and stare at Castiel, pleading for him to help, to do_ something. __

_Determination crosses Castiel's face, and then he leans down, touching his forehead to Sam's. The screaming stops, but Sam can feel a battle begin behind his eyes. A battle between his friend and something else. Something Sam is all too familiar with._

Gooood morning, Vietnam! _Lucifer shouts, and Sam wants to scream again._

¤¤¤

“Damn it, boy, pick up your phone every once in a while! I heard you left the Breadens. You're not doing anything stupid, are you? You better not be in trouble or I'll skin your ass. Call me.”

¤¤¤

Dean wakes up gasping, reaching for the bottle that should be on the nightstand. It's not there. His terror-addled mind takes a few seconds to realize why that is: he threw out every ounce of liquor yesterday, after he finished talking to Carla. Going cold turkey seemed like a great idea at the time. Not so much now, as Dean feels every bone in his body start to shake. His muscles barely get him to the bathroom before giving up, and he collapses on the cold tiles, fighting nausea so intense that it consumes every other thought and feeling.

The tiles burn against his skin, skin so sensitive that even the light pressure of air is agony. Dean forces first one arm and then the other to move, pulling himself up against the toilet bowl and emptying his stomach of everything in it. Mostly, it's bile.

He's not sure how long he sits there, slumped against the porcelain, but everything he wants is a drink. Everything he is, everything he will ever be, is thirsty. He doesn't care about anything else, ignores the quiet reminder that there’s a reason he’s not drinking; he just wants to calm down enough to go out and find a liquor store. Preferably one with whiskey. He loves whiskey. The way it burns so sweetly in his throat, the amber color against the glass, the soft clunk-clunk-clunk as he tips the bottle. He probably has enough cash in his wallet for two fifths of the good stuff. _I just have to move first,_ he thinks as his vision start to blur and the room lurches abruptly.

It occurs to him that he might be dying.

¤¤¤

Dean wakes up in a hospital. In and of itself, this isn’t new. He's done it enough times to feel only faint surprise when he hears the beeping of a heart monitor to his right. After that comes pain. Pain in his muscles, pain in his bones, and above all, pain in his head. It's thudding in time with the beeps of the machine, and Dean knows that if he opens his eyes, it's going to get worse. He keeps them closed.

That's when he registers the other person in the room.

Someone is breathing to his left, the slow, steady breathing of one asleep, and for a second Dean thinks _It's okay, Sammy's here._

Then he remembers.

Whiskey would be good right about now. Vodka, too. Tequila. Hell, he'll even settle for beer, as long as it’ll get him drunk. There’s something he has to do, he knows that, but he doesn’t want to think about it, doesn’t want to face it yet. He doesn’t want to think about the kid that’s on its way, that he’ll have to take care of. It feels like his tongue has dried up into a leathery flap and the only thing that will help is a drink; the stronger, the better. He tries to wet his lips and frowns. There’s guilt souring his stomach along with the thirst, more guilt beating against his skull, but he _needs_ to get out of here, needs to find the closest liquor store. Just so he can have one drink. One drink, and then he’ll be good. Then he will be able to deal.

The breathing changes as whoever is sitting next to him coughs awake. He knows that cough, knows the throat-clearing that comes after, but all he wants is a drink. That's all he can think about.

“I see you're awake,” Bobby says, his voice even rougher than usual. Dean wonders if he's been screaming at someone. He wonders if he brought any whiskey. Bobby is always willing to provide some rot-gut. The thought makes him finally blink his eyes open. He was right; the light hurts like hell.

“Hey, Bobby,” he tries to say, but it comes out more as a croak.

“Don't 'hey, Bobby' me, boy,” Bobby says, glaring. His eyes are puffy, and Dean frowns again. “I knew you were an idjit, but this takes the damn cake. Are you _trying_ to kill yourself? No, don't answer. I don't think I want to know.”

“Wasn't,” Dean says, because he wasn't. And isn't that ironic? “Drink?”

Bobby glares like he knows Dean didn't mean water, but he holds out a cup, a straw dangling conveniently in front of Dean's mouth. He doesn't want it, but he can't deny that his throat is parched, so he takes a slow sip. And then another one. And another one, until the cup is empty. He's still thirsty, but it's a mental kind of thirst now, an insistent beat of _drink, drink, drink_ against his skull.

“What happened?” he asks, trying to ignore his screaming thoughts. He'll get the whiskey soon enough, it'll all be fine. He'll get the whiskey, and then he can go back to forgetting. He was doing it so well. The pain of his nails biting into his palms focuses him slightly, so he clenches his fists harder to increase it.

“Well, looks like you decided to stop drinking and threw out all your liquor, judging by the empty bottles in the sink. Anyone ever tell you what happens to someone who goes cold turkey like that after years of steady drinking?”

Dean blinks.

“Guess not. You started to hallucinate. The owner heard you screaming, called an ambulance. They got to you before the seizures started, so you're still alive. Pumped you full of benzodia-what's-its, got you stable. Mind telling me why you thought today was the day to stop?”

Then Dean remembers. He sits bolt upright, grasping at the sheets, feeling himself shiver as he breaks out in a cold sweat.

“Shit, Bobby,” he whispers, nausea returning. “Shit.”

“What? Dean, what is it?”

“I'm gonna be a dad, Bobby.”

¤¤¤

_The fight for Sam's soul rages over continents, under oceans, on top of knives' edges, through space and time. Sam's body doesn't move, hardly breathes, but inside him, an inferno rages._

_The only reason Castiel doesn't perish at the first brush with Lucifer is that Lucifer isn't actually there. He may have left an imprint so strong it would have accompanied Sam throughout the rest of his existence, eventually gaining enough power to call the Devil out of the Cage once again, but it's still just an imprint, and Castiel is an angel. A weakened, wounded angel with burnt wings, but an angel nonetheless. It makes them about evenly matched._

_He hopes Sam isn't too aware of what is going on, but he suspects it's all too clear to him. He spares a second to regret just leaving him lying on the ground for however long this will take with nothing but Castiel's empty body for company, but that second is enough for Lucifer to slash through his defenses and almost enough for him to strike a fatal blow, so he banishes it from his mind. Sam will be fine. This could take weeks, and Sam would still be fine, because right now there's an angel inside him, keeping him alive._

_The fight rages on._

¤¤¤

Bobby reluctantly refused to let Dean stay at his place, since, as he put it, it was worse than a brewery and a still combined, and filled with way too many bad memories for a recovering alcoholic to deal with at once.

Dean has no idea how he went from that to sleeping on Missouri's couch.

Missouri called him on the day of his discharge and told him, in no uncertain terms, to “get his butt to her place, ASAP,” or there would be _consequences._ Dean hadn't spoken to her in years, but she's still got the ability to make him feel like a teenage punk who's broken a piece of the good china. He doesn't ask how she got his number, since hello, psychic, but he does put up a bit of a fight about coming to stay. It lasts about three minutes before he's promised to call when he's a few miles away so she can make him some coffee.

He would ask why she can't just _see_ when he's arriving, but he doesn't have the energy to be smart-ass. It's taking everything he has to not just pull over at the closest general store and pick up some alcohol. He's gone from wishing for whiskey, to wanting something strong, to being just plain desperate for anything with even a tiny drop of alcohol in it, but now he's remembered why he's doing this. It doesn't make the thirst go away, but it makes it just a little bit easier to ignore it. He knows it won't last, not when the nightmares come, but for now, he's content to drive and listen to some Led Zep.

Sam once told him that listening to him sing along was akin to listening to a cat being strangled, which had of course only made him sing louder. Now, he smiles at the memory. It's a brief thing, there and gone, but it's the first honest smile he's smiled in what feels like years.

Missouri threatens to whack him with a spoon for old time’s sake if he puts his dirty boots on her couch, gives him a cup of scalding hot coffee, and shoots him one of those _looks_. Pamela had them too, for the few hours he knew her and she still had eyes to look at him with. It's like they _know_ things, and it never fails to creep Dean the fuck out. Missouri doesn't answer his aggressive “ _What,_ ” so he has no idea what it is she thinks she knows. He grumbles as he makes the couch into a bed, but then Missouri forces him to have some dinner and he has to concentrate on making his shaking hands work and on keeping the food down once he's eaten it, and he forgets all about her mysterious look.

Carla calls three days after Dean is discharged. He ends up telling her about his little brush with death, since he figures she should know what she's getting into if they're going to do this. Which is still in doubt, since all she's agreed to so far is to not get an abortion right this minute.

“Are you even stupider than I thought? God. Moron,” she growls, but Dean thinks he notices a slight warming in her tone, and something like hope begins to grow behind his ribs. Maybe she'll say yes. Maybe he has a reason to live after all. “I'm just calling to tell you we should meet. One meeting, and then I'll decide just how stupid I'm gonna be. Okay?”

“Yes. Thank you,” he says, clutching the phone to his ear hard enough to hurt.

“I’m not saying yes, but I’m not saying no, either. God knows why.”

After she hangs up, Dean goes to stand by the window. It's dangerous for him to have nothing to do, because then he remembers, and remembering makes him want to drink, so he picks up his dirty plate, starts to clean up after himself. It quiets the buzz in his head some, enough to let him think about what this really means.

No more hunting. He wasn't doing that, anyway, not since... Well, not since, but there’s no way he's raising this kid a hunter. The question is, though, how he could possibly avoid it. He can't let the kid live in oblivion, not when he knows all the things that go bump in the night. How does he balance “normal” and “Winchester”? He needs a drink so bad he has to stop what he's doing, lean against the wall and just breathe through it.

_You have to decide, right now, kid. You have to decide that you're never drinking again, no matter what happens. No matter how bad it gets, how many people die around you, how many more blows you have to take, you're not drinking again. Because that kid is going to be beautiful, and it deserves a dad who's sober._

Missouri sat him down that first night, after dinner, and laid it out for him. He'd hated to hear it, resented her for saying it, but now... He knows what she meant. He can't do this halfway, can't have a kid and not be there for it. It might have been a spur of the moment decision, but it's one he's going to have to live with for the rest of his life if he goes through with it. Can he do that? After everything, can he really do that?

He vaguely remembers holding Sam for the first time, a few days after he and Mom got home from the hospital. He'd been tiny and vulnerable, but so full of life, and Dean had loved him so much he thought he might burst with it. He'd been every inch the proud big brother, and he contemplates that now, imagines holding his own kid like that. That, or the booze.

There's no question in his mind.

¤¤¤

Missouri doesn't suggest going to an AA meeting, but she does leave a pamphlet in plain view on the kitchen table one morning. Dean glares at it, ignores it, sneaks peeks at it when he's sure she isn't looking, and finally, just before lunch, picks it up. It might be worth a try. Anything for the kid, right? And Sam would want him to do it. He knows that.

He goes, he hates every second of it, and when he gets home he resolves to go every week. Missouri doesn't ask, but her smile is smug that night.

¤¤¤

Dean dreams about Sam falling. He dreams about Sam dying, about Jake stabbing him. He dreams about seeing his brother possessed by the devil. He dreams about Hell, about his dad dying, about Sam almost choking him to death, about Bobby's neck snapping, about Cas exploding into a red mist, about Sam drinking blood, about seeing his mom make a deal with a demon, about Sam falling. Always about Sam falling. He wakes up screaming, but he doesn't drink. He doesn't drink, and he doesn't pray. He keeps his vows.

¤¤¤

The doctor's office is off-white and smells like flowers, which is a damn sight better than some places Dean has been to in his time. Hell, there aren't even any sick people waiting outside, just an empty room filled with muzak. Dean is glad they don't have to spend any time there, or he might have killed something just on principle.

 _Apple pie life, huh, Sam?_ he thinks, wondering if his brother would have laughed if he saw Dean now. Shit, Missouri even made him wear a _nice_ shirt, since, as she put it, “You need every point you can get in your favor, boy. That girl is one breath away from running at the best of times, and who can blame her?”

Carla is indeed unhappy with him, but right now it's mostly because the morning sickness has apparently started and she blames him for every breakfast she's not having. She's mostly forgiven him for landing himself in the hospital, since she sees it as his dumbass way of showing that he cares, and she's resigned herself to getting “huge and bloated,” but the morning sickness is apparently unforgivable.

The doctor – a white, middle-aged man who doesn't look like he goes to the gym as often as he should – smiles at them as he settles behind the desk. God, it's all so cliché that Dean wants to scream.

“Welcome, Mrs. Boyd, Mr. Boyd. My secretary informs me this is your first child?” he says, spreading his hands over the papers on his desk.

Carla shoots him a look, which Dean answers with one of his own, one eyebrow raised. She shrugs, nods. Yeah, it's easier if he assumes they're married. And it's not like Dean's not used to answering to strange names. For now, he's Dean Boyd, loving husband and expectant father.

_Isn't this what you wanted from me, Sam?_

¤¤¤

Dean doesn't mean to find himself in the middle of a hunt. Really, he doesn't. He'd promised himself he wasn't going to do that anymore, not without Sam, and he'd stuck to it, but it's kind of hard to ignore a ghost when it's throwing you across the room.

He's staying in a motel, just for a couple of nights so he can accompany Carla to the ultrasound tomorrow, and the sight of the room alone is enough for him to wish for a drink. The wallpapers are the kind of ugly Sam was always silently amused by, so retro he suspects they were the height of modernity when they were put up, and while there's only one bed in the room, the general layout screams of his former life. His life with Sam.

If he closes his eyes and pretends really hard, he can almost hear the tapping of Sam's fingers against a keyboard, the soft flap of Castiel's wings that means he’s dropping by for one reason or another. Back when he pretended to care, that is.

The anger is enough to burn away the afterimage of Sam's smile, so Dean focuses on that, on how stupid he was to think he'd actually made a friend. An angel for a friend. What had he been thinking?

_Angels are watching over you._

That doesn’t help.

It's almost a relief when the lights starts flickering and the temperature drops about twenty degrees. At least Dean knows what to do with this, and he hasn't been out of the game for so long that he's stopped carrying weapons. The gun loaded with iron bullets is in his hand before he's made a conscious decision to move, but all that does is piss off the spirit, who decides that throwing him across the room is a good idea.

Dean has never liked the sound his back makes when it connects with plaster.

¤¤¤

_It's raining on Sam's face. A soft, tepid rain that makes soft, tepid sounds against the foliage around him as it falls. Sam has missed rain like this, rain that isn't hard and cold or fast and electric, that just soaks the earth as it lands and doesn't harm anyone. It feels good against his skin, and for the first time since he came back, he wonders what he looks like. Is he burned? Sooty? Naked? He can't tell, and he can't move or open his eyes to find out. He wonders if he should worry that he can't really feel his body below the neck._

_Inside, he hears Castiel scream in rage and pain, hears Lucifer laugh, and he concentrates on the rain. The rain can't hurt him._

¤¤¤

Since Dean is doing this hunt solo, it takes longer than usual for him to find out who the spirit is. Or used to be, whatever. When he first sits down to do research – at the library, because his motel room is haunted and therefore not conducive to doing research – he has to fight to unclench his hands for five minutes before he can boot up the laptop. Sam's laptop. He hasn't used it since _then,_ and wasn't ever planning to, and yet here he is.

If Cas was here, he'd smite the ghost in two seconds flat. Dean smiles for a second before his face sets back into the scowl he's usually wearing these days. It's not an option anymore; Cas isn't here and won't ever be again. Dean finally opens up the web browser, breathes, remembers why he can't have a drink, and begins.

¤¤¤

_It's just a flicker, there and gone, a hint of something Castiel used to take for granted, but it's all he needs to break out of Lucifer's grasp and gain some much needed distance. The fight isn't going well. Even if he's just a memory of the real thing, Lucifer is more powerful than Castiel had counted on, and Castiel's wings quiver from the remembered pain at his brother's hands. There isn't a single feather on them now; thin, ethereal membranes are all that's left, and the pain is constant and throbbing._

_His sword isn't a physical thing on this plane, but it feels good in his hand nonetheless. He hefts it, stands up straight, and waits for Lucifer to attack again._

¤¤¤

The smell of burning gasoline is heavy on Dean's clothes, cloying in his nose, and the fire at his back blazes high as he hurries away from the graveyard, wary of cops and neighbors. It hadn't been as easy as it would have been with two people, but he’d pulled it off, and he's not too hurt. A few scrapes, a bruise or two, and a singed boot, that's all. The ghost hadn't realized what he was doing at first, so he could dig in peace. It wasn't until he tore open the coffin that she came shrieking in, trying to stop him, and by then it was quick work to dunk her corpse and set her on fire. She'd gotten a few hits in when he poured the salt, though, and he shuddered at the memory of her icy arms around his chest.

He's just getting in the car, carefully avoiding getting any gasoline or mud on the upholstery, when Carla texts him.

_Still coming 2morrow? Havnt heard anything from u._

“Shit,” he swears. He'd been so caught up in getting rid of the ghost that he hadn't realized he should have called and told her he was in town. He's not used to having to do things like that, to people caring when he arrives or when he's leaving, and he hopes Carla isn't too pissed at him. Not now, when she's finally agreed to do this crazy thing, when the three month marker has come and gone and there’s no going back.

He sends a quick text back, telling her he's definitely coming, not to worry, and then leans his forehead against the wheel. He wonders how he's going to explain the bruises.

¤¤¤

_When Castiel finally strikes the memory of Lucifer down, it reverberates through Sam like the sound of a gong, making his teeth ache and his ears hum. He still can't move, can't feel his body, but something is lighter inside, cleaner somehow. It's such a wonderful feeling he has to take a second and revel in it. What is it? Why is he feeling like this?_

Sam? Sam, can you hear me?

_That’s just weird. He can hear Cas speaking in his head._

You can hear me. Good. Listen to me. I'm sorry.

_Sorry? Why is Cas sorry?_

I miscalculated how difficult this fight would be. I will not be able to do anything but recuperate for quite some time, and I have to stay inside you while I do it or you will die of thirst or exposure long before I'm well enough to heal you.

_Heal me? Cas, what is going on?_

_Sam feels so confused. He can't focus on anything, his thoughts are all tumbling over each other, and through it all, he can feel the space where Lucifer used to be, echoing with a sad kind of emptiness._

Sleep, Sam. I will explain later. Sleep.

_Sam sleeps._

¤¤¤

“What happened to your face?” is the first thing Carla says when they meet the next morning. Dean winces, because he's got a black eye and a scrape over his right eyebrow and he knows she jumps to “fight” after just a split second. This is not good. Not good at all.

“I–” he starts, but she interrupts.

“I thought we agreed you were gonna be a responsible adult now!” she exclaims. “I mean, God knows I want to punch you in the face most of the time, but you were gonna be good! You promised!” He voice takes on a desperate edge as she goes on. “I trusted you! And now I can't get rid of this baby and I can't afford to keep it and its daddy is out getting into fights while I have to explain to everyone why I thought it was a good idea to become a surrogate mother to my one night stand!”

Dean sees tears forming in her eyes and he blinks. He'd never pegged Carla for the crying type. Then he remembers that she's _pregnant,_ and that does stuff to you.

“Hey, hey,” he soothes, reaching out to her even though she's trying to turn her back to him. “I didn't get into a fight, I promise, okay? I just had a little accident wile I was working on the car. Nothing major, just me being a klutz. No fighting, promise. Look at my knuckles, see? No fighting.”

Carla fights back tears, clenching her jaw, but she does look at his hands when he holds them up, and after a second she nods, takes a shuddering breath.

“Sorry,” she says, which makes Dean feel like even more of a douche for lying to her.

“No, no, it's okay. I look like a mess. I promise to be more careful.”

She nods again, straightens her shoulders, and places one hand on her stomach. Dean has seen dozens of women do it over the years, but it's different when it's his kid under her hand. He kind of wants to reach out and touch, but that would be weird. They're not like that.

“So, you ready to see this kid?” she asks, her voice back to normal with no trace of tears.

“Hell yeah,” he replies. Butterflies start up in his stomach. Shit. His hand leaves a damp print on the glass door as he opens it.

¤¤¤

The ultrasound technician raises an eyebrow at Dean's black eye but doesn't comment, just shows them into a room and asks Carla to have a seat. Carla complies, her hand still laid protectively over the slight bump of her stomach, and Dean leans against a wall, shoving his hands into his jeans pockets. His heart is beating too fast, fear sweat beading on his back, and all in all, his body is acting like he's about to face down a nest of vampires possessed by demons instead of see his kid for the first time.

It's somehow become so very _real_ all of a sudden. He can't believe they're really doing this, that Carla has agreed, that he's sober, that he's talking to Bobby again, that Missouri will be expecting him home tomorrow since it's his turn to cook dinner. Cas might not be answering his prayers like the dick he apparently is, and Sam might be...elsewhere, but Dean is actually living his life. The ache isn't gone, and there's still a hole in his chest that nothing will ever close, but he's _having a kid,_ and nothing can lessen the awesomeness of that.

His heart slows down. He can do this. He's great with kids.

“This might be a bit cold, hon,” the technician says, and Carla hisses as she applies a gel to her stomach. It makes her brown skin glisten in the lamp light, emphasizing the curve of her baby bump. “Sorry. It'll warm up real soon.” She shoots Dean a smile. “Daddy can come closer, it’s not gonna bite,” she says, waving him over.

Daddy. Now that's a weird concept. Cool, but weird.

The technician chats idly as she prepares the equipment, and then she directs their attention to the screen.

“There you go, sweethearts. That's your baby.”

It doesn't really look like anything other than a blob to Dean, which he knows is a cliché, but it's the truth. Just a blob on a screen. That is, until the technician points out where the head is, and the arms and legs, and all of a sudden Dean _sees_ it. The lump in his throat isn't entirely unexpected.

As they walk out, Carla hands Dean the picture and gives him a look.

“You better take care of this kid, Dean,” she says, and her voice is dead serious. “You'd better take care of it, or I'm never going to forgive you.”

“I will,” he promises. “I will.”

She keeps looking at him for way too long, but he just looks back, his face as honest as he can make it. He'll take care of this kid if it takes everything he has. It's not in his nature to do anything less. And if the intense staring reminds him of anyone else, that's really not important right now.

The picture gets an honorary place in the Impala's glove box.

¤¤¤

The technician hadn't been able to tell if it was a boy or a girl yet, and Dean isn't sure he would have wanted to know anyway, but Missouri takes one look at the picture and _smiles,_ which is going to drive Dean crazy if she keeps doing it. She knows, and now that she does, Dean can feel his curiosity battling with his desire for it to be a surprise. It's not that he wishes for one or the other – boy or girl, it's going to be his kid either way and he'll love it – but not knowing when Missouri clearly does is just... It's unfair, is what it is.

He lasts for two minutes, during which Missouri just looks at him and waits like she knows what he's thinking. Which she probably does.

“Okay, I gotta know. Boy or girl?” he finally blurts out, sagging back into the surprisingly comfortable couch like his strings have been cut. The way her smile turns smug grates on his nerves, but he keeps quiet.

“Are you sure you want to know, sugar?” she asks, even though she obviously knows the answer. Damn psychics. “And don't cuss at me!” she adds, finger held threateningly in the air.

“Yes, okay? I want to know,” he says, ignoring her other comment.

“Well, okay then. This here is a picture of your daughter.”

“A girl?” he asks. His _daughter._ “I'm gonna have a little girl.”

“Yes, you are. Congratulations.” She beams, and all Dean can do is beam back at her. He's going to have a daughter. Holy shit.

¤¤¤

_Castiel doesn't sleep. He feels every agonizing second as time passes too slowly, and too fast. Every minute they lie there and recuperate is another minute Dean thinks Castiel has abandoned him, another minute Dean needlessly mourns Sam's death. The frustration makes him want to smite and render, but all he can do is listen to Sam's breathing and feel the wind against Sam's skin._

_Being in Sam is not quite like having a vessel. He's inside Sam's mind, but he's not controlling him per se, and Sam isn't automatically healed by Castiel's presence. It's something new, something Castiel hasn't heard of before, but he isn't overly concerned; it isn't hurting anyone, and it doesn't feel_ wrong</i> in that way evil does, so it should be fine.

He thinks about Jimmy, about the way his vessel had changed once Jimmy's soul was gone and he was alone in his body in a way that no angel is meant to be. He hopes Jimmy knows he's grateful for everything, for the opportunity he now has to travel on Earth without having to destroy anyone's life. He knows just what he wants to do with that chance.

Seeing Dean again, one more time, would be a blessing. Dean taught Castiel what it means to chose, and he would like to say thank you for that.</i>

¤¤¤

Carla's mom hates him. Not that Dean has ever met the woman, but Carla gleefully informs him of this as she's fighting her way into his car, her belly getting bigger every day. Dean still can't believe she's doing this, that _they're_ doing this. It feels like the bottom is going to fall out of the whole thing any second now.

“And she said to tell you that if you ever hurt her granddaughter, she's gonna whoop your skinny ass,” she adds, trying to get the seatbelt on. He would help, but he knows what her reaction would be and he's fine with keeping his balls intact, thank you very much.

“She sounds delightful,” Dean gripes as he's finally permitted to start the car.

“She's the least of your troubles if you don't treat this baby right,” Carla shoots back, stroking her stomach. Dean's hand itches to reach out and feel for a kick, but now isn't the time to test Carla's patience.

“Why is everyone assuming I'm gonna be a terrible father today?” Dean exclaims, yanking on the steering wheel in frustration. Someone behind him blares their horn. “Just because I'm nervous as hell doesn’t mean I won't be an awesome dad!”

Carla rolls her eyes, but Dean sees the corner of her mouth tugging up and suddenly his heart feels lighter. Reverse psychology or not, that worked: he feels much better about the whole thing now.

¤¤¤

For once, it's not Sam, or Hell. It might not even be a nightmare, actually. Mostly, it's just an urgent sense that he needs to do something, that he's going to be late, that someone is waiting for him. Somehow, he knows it's his daughter, and he keeps opening doors to find her, one after the other, but she's always just one step ahead of him, one more door away.

He wakes up gasping, but after he's calmed down, he rolls his eyes at his subconscious. Doors? Really?

The dream had a point, though. He does need to do something. He needs to get his act together before he finds himself sleeping on Missouri's couch while caring for a newborn baby. He needs a job. And a place to stay, permanently. Preferably in South Dakota, as close to Bobby's as possible. Brewery or not, he's not gonna let his kid grow up without Bobby in her life; some of Dean's best memories are from that salvage yard.

The wall clock ticks in the night silence – Missouri hasn't let him take it down, no matter how crazy it's making him – and Dean lies there and thinks about his future for a while. A job, yes. Maybe as a mechanic? He'll need new papers for that, but Bobby will help. And should he buy a house? Would he even be able to afford that? Where should he live? He'll need to look up school districts.

Jesus. School districts, who would have thought?

 _I'm having a kid, Sammy,_ he thinks, picturing Sam sitting in some diner booth and eating one of his ridiculous salads. Picturing himself on the opposite side, having a normal conversation with his brother for once. _I'm thinking about school districts and jobs and houses. I know it's not exactly what I promised, but it's as close to apple pie as I'll probably ever get._

The thought of Sam sends a stabbing sense of urgency and helplessness through him, because Sam is still in Hell and there's still nothing Dean can do about it, but it's accompanied by a sense of fondness that he hasn't felt in a long time. He can imagine his brother's goofy grin, the pride in his eyes when Dean tells him he's going to be an uncle, and for a second it's like he isn't dead and being tortured at all.

_I miss you, Sammy._

Dean's hands ache because he's clenching them too hard around an imaginary bottle, but the urge to drink isn't stronger than the urge to do right by his kid, and his pillow soaks up any tears that might have fallen on it.

¤¤¤

Dean is out grocery shopping when he finally admits to himself that he misses Cas. The shopping itself is nothing unusual since he started living at Missouri's; he's staying as far away from the liquor section as he can, but he knows the clerks would never let him buy anything if he broke down. Missouri brought him here on his first week in town and introduced him to every single one of them – of course she knew that they were all gonna be there at once – and he asked them to never sell him any alcohol, ever. Which had led to a ridiculous incident when he came home from the ghost business and needed to buy rubbing alcohol, but that's beside the point.

The point is that he's staring at the meat freezer, trying to figure out what to cook, when his eyes fall on the hamburger meat. It's such a dumb thing to make him smile, but he remembers Cas scarfing down burgers like he was starving, and something in him just...relaxes a little. Not a lot, not “forgive and forget, let's move on” relaxation, but enough to make him admit that he misses his friend. He misses the guy he thought Cas was, the guy who sat on a park bench so many eons ago and told Dean about his doubts. He doesn't know what happened to him, if he ever really existed, but he misses him all the same.

He hopes Missouri likes burgers.

¤¤¤

Carla is eight months pregnant when Dean finally finds himself a job. It's not as a mechanic, or even as a bartender; no, he's working at Starbucks. Fuck everything. They were the only ones who were willing to take him when he told them he'd need some time off right after his kid was born, and so Starbucks it is. Frou-frou coffee and smart-ass customers.

It pays the rent, though, if not the food or anything else, and that's the important part. He has enough saved up to _just_ make it with the rest. Bobby is an hour's drive away, the school district is acceptable, and there's an auto shop that Dean has his eye on for the future. Maybe part time, once he gets the kid into daycare. The owner is surly and muscled and covered in tattoos, but she liked his (fake-ish) resume enough to tell him to come back once the kid thing had calmed down. Dean can work with that.

Missouri had gone along when he moved, all the way from Kansas, just to “get a feel of the place.” Dean was more than happy to humor her, since the last thing he needs is a haunted apartment. The company was welcome, too, even if she did spend half the time verbally abusing him. Her comments on the wallpaper and furniture still echo in his head whenever he comes home, but he’s grown to like it. Nothing can be worse than some of the motel rooms he and Sam stayed in over the years.

As he always does when he comes home, Dean checks the devil's traps under the welcome rug and on the kitchen ceiling before he does anything else. They're still intact, and the knives for a quick angel-banishing sigil are still where he left them, all over the place. They're well out of reach for a toddler, but he's gonna have to work out a new system once the kid reaches waist height.

He fiddles with a carving knife he's left on the cutting board in the kitchen, testing the blade before he puts it back. This is the worst time for him, the time between work and sleep when he has nothing to do and no one to talk to. He's used to having Sam around just about 24/7, and all this new free time makes him think of everything he's lost, of what used to be. To drown out any such thoughts, Dean turns on the TV. Maybe he should get into a show or two, that might help.

He leans back in the sofa (that he _owns_ ) and starts flicking through the channels, searching for something that looks acceptable. There's no wall clock to fill the silence, so he turns the volume up as high as he can stand and does his damnedest to get interested in something. Anything. It doesn't work – he has to stop watching a show because there are two brothers on it, and the next one someone had just died, and the one after that some guy was going to be an uncle, and everything just reminds Dean of his life. He has to turn the TV off when a vodka commercial comes on.

“Fuck,” he breathes into the empty air, staring at the ceiling. There's a water stain in the left corner, and it's shaped kind of like an elephant. He stares at it for a while. He thinks about calling Bobby, but can't quite handle talking to anyone right now. Besides, his phone is too far away.

This is why it was a good idea to stay at Missouri's for as long as he did. She would find him sitting on the sofa, slap him on the back of his head, and put him to work. Mostly with cooking and cleaning, maybe some yard work, but she let him have a look at her car once, after he'd asked nicely, and he managed to make it much more fuel efficient with just a few tweaks.

His stomach rumbles, but he can't face going to the store to get groceries. Maybe he'll call for pizza, since he promised both Bobby and Missouri that he wouldn't skip any more meals. Soon. The elephant stain kind of looks like it's walking towards the second bedroom. It has a distinct, determined look about it, and he imagines it's annoyed that it can't move.

His eyes move to the door to the second bedroom, and suddenly he's not tired at all. That's going to be his daughter's bedroom. He should make sure it looks okay for when she gets here. The door creaks a little when he opens it, so grease is the first thing on his mental shopping list. The second is paint, because seriously, what was he thinking when he took this place? Grey walls? Really?

He measures out where the bed should go, writes down what furniture to buy, and wonders what color he should paint the walls until the kid is old enough to decide for herself.

The silence isn't quite so silent anymore.  



	2. Chapter 2

_Waiting is tedious. Very, very tedious. And lonely._

¤¤¤

“You'd better be on your fucking way, Dean Winchester, and you'd better not drive so fast that you get pulled over or I'll FUCKING KILL YOU GOD DAMN IT!”

Dean winces, pulling the phone away from his ear with the hand that isn't busy keeping his baby on the road.

“Geez, Carla, I'm on my way. No need to blow my eardrum out,” he gripes, but there's no real heat behind the words. It's actually happening. The baby is on its way.

“I wasn't yelling at you, that was a contraction,” Carla shoots back. Dean hears her friend Stacy cursing in the background.

“Stacy better be taking it easy on the road, too,” he says. He's seen Stacy drive. He can't believe his daughter's continued survival is dependent on her and her complete disregard for traffic rules.

Carla relays his comment, which earns him more indistinct cursing.

“Stacy says to blow her.” Carla laughs, and then: “GOD FUCKING DAMN IT.”

“Breathe, remember? Breathe, Carla,” he says, trying to be soothing while he takes a sharp left turn.

“YOU breathe, Dean! You're not the one who's gonna push this baby out through your vagina!”

There's a quick rustle, and then Stacy is speaking.

“Hey, Dean. Great weather we're having, huh?”

“Stacy,” Dean replies.

“So we're here now, and I'm guessing you're gonna be a few hours still, so I'm gonna go pretend be Carla's wife or something while we wait, okay? Make sure to bring snacks.”

“It's my kid, I'm not gonna bring snacks! This isn’t some kind of show!” Dean says, tires screeching as he brakes for a red light.

“Whatever. This is gonna take a while, all the books say so, so hopefully you'll get here before the kid does. And then you'd better take care of Carla's kid.”

“Of course I'm gonna–” But she's already hung up. He throws the phone in the empty passenger seat and glares at the light until it changes to green. He knows he should be thankful Carla's friends haven't decided he's somehow using her and turned on him, but all these threats are getting old.

He keeps to the speed limit. Carla did have a point about being pulled over.

¤¤¤

Her eyes are blue, like all babies' are, and her skin is a soft brown that glows in the florescent lights of the hospital. She's tiny and wrinkly and ruddy, and she's the most amazing thing Dean has ever seen. She has Sam's nose, though, and when he notices, he panics. How could he have been this selfish? How could he bring this beautiful child into a world that's so fucked up it gives grown men nightmares? How could he ever think _he_ could be good dad? If there's anyone more broken than him, they're probably in a nuthouse.

She makes a small, disgruntled sound, and his thoughts stop. Everything just stops – the buzz from the corridor, the sound of Carla's breathing, the smell of linoleum and sweat, it all stops mattering – and he watches her tiny fingers open and close like she wants to grab onto something. He gives her his finger, still aching a bit from where Carla crushed his hand earlier, and it looks huge and rough next to her. Her skin is so soft.

“You better take care of her, Dean,” Carla says from the hospital bed, and she's smiling when he can finally tear his gaze away long enough to look at her. “She's beautiful, isn't she?”

“Yeah,” he says dumbly. “Yeah, she is. Um.” After a moment's hesitation, he leans down and kisses Carla's cheek. “Do you want to name her?”

Her smile is tired but satisfied, and she winks at him.

“That's your job, hot shot.”

His job.

_Look after Sammy. Follow orders. Kill the monsters. Save the world._

_Name the kid._

“Except that I want her name to be Hope, so you should really name her Hope. But not Hope Boyd, that’s boring,” Carla goes on, interrupting Dean’s thought process and making him smile ruefully.

His attention wanders back to a discussion they had months ago. 

Carla visited his motel room, claiming that they “needed to talk”; Dean’s hands were sweaty with nerves over what she might say. He swallowed, trying to soothe his dry throat, and dug his fingers into his thighs, hard, trying to focus. 

Carla, apparently oblivious to his discomfort, calmly stirred her tea, threw her black hair over her shoulder, and pinned him with a serious look. 

“Look,” she said, wrapping her hands around her mug. “Since we’re doing this, since _I’m_ doing this, _for you_ , I want you to appreciate just how much of a wrench you’re throwing into my life. There will be no jokes about my weight, no turning up late for doctor’s appointments, no complaining if I ask you to buy me two pounds of chocolate. Got it?”

“Two pounds of chocolate?” Dean asked, raising his eyebrows. 

“Yeah, my mom said that might be a thing. But you haven’t answered my question.” 

“So basically, you’re saying I’ll be your bitch,” Dean said, pressing his thumb into a bruise on his knee. 

“Basically.”

“And will this end in six months, or am I stuck like that forever?” Dean asked, leaning back and crossing his arms. 

She looked down at her stomach, at that time nothing more than a shallow bump, and smiled. 

“I’m not ready to be a mom,” she confessed. “I’m not letting the kid grow up without me in its life, but...I’m not ready to take care of it. So yeah, you’ll still be my bitch, even if it’s long-distance, and it’ll be your job to handle all the diapers.” 

It's not a bad one, as far as jobs go, and it’s not like he hates the name. 

“Hope Winchester,” he says, looking down at his daughter and feeling a goofy grin break out on his face. “Hi, kid. I'm your daddy.”

¤¤¤

_Castiel remembers one time, at the beginning of his association with the Winchesters, that he chose to watch them as they prepared for a hunt. Sam tapped at the keyboard of his laptop, talking about the demon they were hunting, and Dean lay on his bed, eating fries and making jokes. He'd been fascinated by their interaction, by the way they could still joke and talk while so much was brewing under the surface – Sam's addiction and betrayal, Dean's memories of hell, Castiel's own presence and very existence._

_He goes back there now, remembering how Dean scoffed at what he termed Sam's “geekiness” and chewed with his mouth open just because he knew it would bother his brother. Sam had thrown a balled-up napkin at him, and Castiel had felt a wave of affection coming off the both of them. It was the first time he'd witnessed brotherly love at such close proximity, and he felt something he'd later identified as envy._

_He should have known he was falling right then._

_Later, when he felt Dean's affection directed at him as well as Sam, sometimes, the envy melted away into something more like longing. Longing, and returned affection. He hadn't known what to do with it, and Dean was still the most vexing being he had ever met, but that affection motivated many of his decisions in the coming months._

_He tries to remember what it feels like to have Dean's affection aimed at him now, as he lies there, lonelier than he has ever been. He can't hear his brothers and sisters, Sam is asleep, and Dean hasn't prayed to him for so long that Castiel almost can't remember what that sounds like. Castiel may be millions of years old, but he's never felt time as acutely as he does now, when he is forced to wait and stare at the backs of Sam's eyelids._

_He misses Dean, he realizes. He misses Sam as well, of course, even though he is right here, but it's been so long since he saw Dean. He misses talking to him, misses watching him interact with his brother, misses feeling that crushing desire to throw Dean against a wall until he stops being so stubborn and listens to Castiel for once. He doesn't want to go back to Heaven once he’s delivered Sam to his brother; he wants to stay here, on Earth, with them._

_It's blasphemy, but Castiel isn't really bothered by that anymore. What does bother him is the creeping realization that his wings doesn't seem to be healing. Everything else is slowly knitting back together, his grace working to repair both him and Sam now, but his wings are just as painful and naked as they were when he entered the fight in the first place._

_He fights down the panic rising inside him like a tidal wave, but he can't help wishing for someone to distract him from the pain, for someone to talk to him or ask him questions or just_ be there i >so that he can have something else to focus on.

Denial is the only way he knows how to deal with things. The Winchesters taught him that much.

¤¤¤

Dean thinks it's kind of poetically ironic that the first night he spends alone with his daughter, just two days after she's born, is in a motel room. He'd hugged Carla goodbye, promised to keep in touch, thanked her and thanked her again, felt incredibly weird about leaving her behind and taking the kid, put Hope in her baby seat and gotten into the Impala, and then he was on his own. With his kid.

It's a long drive from Oklahoma to North Dakota, and after a few hours, he has to stop and rest. The only thing in his price range is, of course, a motel room, and the clerk gives him a weird look when he takes the baby carrier with him into the office to get a room. He guesses it's not every day that guys in leather jackets and leather worker boots show up with a baby in tow. Hope sleeps through it all, only waking up long enough for him to feed her and put her in her cot.

He sits down next to the cot and looks at her. Her hands are so tiny, and her feet are the smallest he's ever seen. He cups her head with his hand, his skin pale against hers, but still looking rough and worn in a way that has nothing to do with being an adult and everything to do with being a hunter. There are scars there, and they look strange next to her softness and vulnerable limbs.

He knows he's acting like an idiot, but he can't help himself. If he’s not allowed to act like an idiot over his newborn kid, then when is he? So he sits there and looks at her, picking her up after a while just because he wants to hold her.

He falls asleep like that, with his daughter in his arms.

¤¤¤

He wakes up because Hope is crying, and after he changes her, he starts telling her stories, rocking her in his arms, voice low and soothing. They're good stories, stories about driving with the window down and the music up, stories about pie and looking at the stars and going to rock concerts, and when he runs out of painless things to talk about, he starts over. Pie, bands, cars, pie, bands, cars, and after a while, Hope falls asleep again, her fingers wrapped around a fold of his shirt.

It's the first night since this whole thing started that Dean doesn't think about drinking even once.

¤¤¤

_The flight to Bobby's house almost undoes three months of healing in a heartbeat. Castiel’s grace struggles just to keep him in flight, never mind how heavy Sam feels, and his wings feel like they've been skinned and then rubbed with salt every time he beats them through the ether, as if every single one of his feathers is constantly being pulled out. When they arrive, Castiel feels himself and Sam materialize in Bobby's living room, but he can't focus on anything other than the pain. The room, so much more solid and one-dimensional than he's used to, appears to be moving around them. Sam lets out a yelp and grabs him by the arm, and Castiel realizes he was falling. How symbolic. He moans as he tries to fold his flayed wings back to their resting position._

 _The_ clack-clack _of a shotgun being loaded alerts him to another presence in the room. Why couldn't he feel that right away? What is wrong with him?_

_“Anyone going to try an explanation I'll believe, or should I just shoot you both and see what happens?”_

_Bobby sounds much like Castiel remembers, but his vision is still acting in ways it shouldn't, and the only thing keeping him on his feet is Sam's hand around his arm, so he lets Sam do the talking. Sam is good at talking, and Castiel listens with interest as Sam explains what he can. Which isn't much, admittedly, since Castiel was too impatient to get back to Dean to really answer any of Sam's questions before they left._

_“And the next thing I know, I wake up in a jungle with Cas, and everything’s been leveled, just like Dean described from when he came back. Cas grabbed me, and here we are,” Sam finishes, and Castiel is sure his face is as earnest as he can make it. He’s very good at making that face, even after so long in Hell, and Castiel knows because he'd been making it the moment he woke up in that jungle._

_“So what's wrong with angel boy?” Bobby asks, and from the way Sam's shoulders slump, Castiel assumes he's lowered his gun._

_“I am merely tired from the flight,” Castiel tries to say, but his lips and tongue won't cooperate, and it comes out a slurred mumble. Something is very, very wrong, and normally that would make him call for his brothers and sisters, but what comes out of his mouth is a weak “Dean,” and then everything wavers out of focus. It doesn't come back for a long time._

¤¤¤

Dean brings Hope home, and if he's driving slightly below the limit the whole way there, that's his business. She's quiet, asleep almost the whole trip, but every time Dean looks in the rear view mirror, there's someone there, even if he can only see the top of her head over her car-seat, and he can hear the breathing of another human being over the sound of the engine. He gets thirty miles before he has to stop because his vision is too blurry for him to see the road. He somehow makes it to the backseat, needing to get closer, needing to see her.

Hope stirs when he lets out a sob, but she doesn't wake up, only flexes her tiny fingers like she wants to grab something. So Dean sits in his car with his daughter's hand wrapped around his index finger, and he cries. Cars whoosh by, their lights playing over his windshield, but no one stops, and it's a long time before Dean starts to calm down. When he can breathe normally again, he picks Hope up and holds her against his chest just to feel her breathe.

“You have an uncle named Sam,” he tells her, his voice barely above a whisper. “He was very brave, and now he's...he's not here, but I know he would love you so much.” Dean leans his head back against the headrest, closing his eyes. “He was tall. Really, really tall, and he had way too much muscle on him, and he could make these puppy dog eyes that would make anyone talk to him.” He looks down at Hope, quirks his mouth into a small smile. “I really hope you never learn how to do that.” Another car whooshes past. “We used to hunt bad things, he and I, and he was such a geek, he could track down any lead, research anything. Your Uncle Bobby still called him an idjit, though, because he was. He totally was.”

Dean takes a breath. Lets it go, and something goes with it.

“And you had another uncle. Your Uncle Cas. He was a nerd too, but a nerd angel, with this trench coat that he never took off. I'm sure he would have loved you too, because no matter what anyone says, he was a softie. A really badass softie.”

It helps, talking about Sam, remembering the good things, the things Dean loved most about his brother. It helps to talk about Cas too, _his_ Cas, like he was someone who existed and died. It's better than him being a figment of Dean's imagination, a role Castiel played to survive and discarded as soon as he got his powers back.

“Your uncles were the most awesome uncles in the world, and they would have spoiled you rotten any chance they got,” he tells Hope, smiling through a new wave of blurriness. “Uncle Sam would have given you piggyback rides when you got older, and Uncle Cas would have taught you how to curse in Enochian just to piss me off when you were a teenager, and...and we would have been a family.”

He chokes on the last word, but it feels right to say it.

“But they're gone, and you'll have to settle for me. One dad, one Uncle Bobby. No Uncle Sam or Uncle Cas. Doesn't mean they don't love you, though, because they do, no matter what.”

¤¤¤

_Castiel wakes up when Sam hauls him to the car, but he only has time to mutter “Sam? Where are we? Where's Dean?” before he returns to his state of being much heavier than he looks. Sam would have asked Bobby for help, only he feels kind of ridiculous not being able to lift one scrawny man. Never mind that that man used to be, maybe still is, an angel. He shakes his head and dumps Cas in the back seat, hoping some rest is all he needs._

 _He has to sit in the driver's seat for a few minutes, just breathing, because he's alive, and not in Hell, and Lucifer is gone, and Dean is waiting for him (Bobby said to be ready for surprises, but he wouldn't say what kind. Sam hopes it's not hookers), and Cas is in the back seat, alive in spite of a vivid memory Sam has of snapping his fingers and reducing him to a fine red mist, and_ Lucifer is gone.

_Sam should probably be happier about that than he is._

¤¤¤

Dean takes Hope's cot into his own room as soon as they get home. It's taken them the better part of two days to drive, and Hope should probably be in bed by now, and all Dean can think is that he can't let her out of his sight. He won't be able to sleep with her in another room, and that's that. He doesn't care what anyone says. Hope doesn't seem to mind, just makes sleepy baby noises and flails her arms around. He takes a picture of her and sends in to Carla, letting her know they’ve made it home.

He changes Hope and hums Smoke On The Water, and she gurgles up at him as if to sing along. He laughs quietly, feeling a lightness in his chest that he can’t remember feeling for years, if ever. It isn't until he's crawling into bed, still humming, that he thinks this might be what happiness feels like.

The realization drowns out any good thoughts he might have been having, because how can he be happy when Sam is in Hell?

It takes a long, long time for Dean to fall asleep.

¤¤¤

Dean's first thought is that they're coming for Hope. He's out of bed in a heartbeat, the floor stinging the soles of his feet with pinpricks of cold as he scoops up Hope with one hand and grabs a gun with the other. He's still half-asleep, unsure of what woke him, but his nerves are humming with pent-up energy, adrenaline pumping with every beat of his heart. Hope wails, probably wondering why her dad tore her out of bed at...four in the morning.

“I'm sorry, sweetheart, I'm sorry,” he soothes her, holding her firmly against his chest and scanning the room for potential threats. He doesn't find any, only the usual paraphernalia of their life; the physical evidence of their daily routine in the form of diaper packages, spare stroller wheels, and a pile of dirty laundry in the corner.

There's a knock on the apartment door. Dean nearly jumps out of his skin, bites back a curse that Hope needs to be at least thirty years older before she hears, and swings around to face the bedroom door. He doubts any of his neighbors are knocking on his door at four in the morning, which begs the question of how whoever it is got in through the gate, which makes Dean think of putting a devil's trap down by the mailboxes just to be on the safe side, and _there's still someone at the door._

He's torn – does he leave Hope in the bedroom, unprotected against anything that might make it in through the window, or does he bring her out into the hallway and a possible fight? The thought of putting her down in her crib with potential danger so close makes him physically ill, so he adjusts his grip on the gun and his kid and opens the bedroom door.

The line of salt on the floor is undisturbed, making Dean breathe a little bit easier. Anything that needs to knock won't be able to get through that. Not anytime soon, anyway. Dispelling disturbing images of peepholes and drills that he's not been able to shake since he saw Detox when he was younger, Dean takes a look at their mystery guest.

Cas is standing outside the door.

Cas. Ringing the bell to Dean's apartment. After everything, after all the doubt and all the times Dean _begged_ him to come down and visit, and now he's just standing there like nothing has happened, like he didn't leave Dean behind, letting him pick up the crumpled pieces of a life he didn't want to live anymore alone. It takes too much for Dean to keep from gripping Hope as hard as he's gripping his gun, and he has to look away, has to get a hold of himself. Only, the thought of Hope pisses him off even more, because how the hell could Cas not be there for her like he should, like an uncle should? How could he let Dean do this on his own?

It's not anything rational that prompts Dean to open the door, and rage on Hope's behalf is mixing with disappointment on his own and just a tiny sliver of relief, so small and light it's almost drowned out by everything else.

“What the _fuck_ are you doing here?” he demands, not caring that the door almost hits Cas in the face, he's swinging it open so hard. He's pointing a gun at Cas before he can even think about it, both because his dad's training is telling him not to trust his eyes, and because he's mad as fuck and shooting Cas in the face should be just the thing for that.

“Hello, Dean,” Cas says, and then someone is stepping up behind him.

Dean can't look, he _can't fucking look that way,_ because he knows that gait, and this is too much.

It's too cruel, he can't take this–

“Hey, Dean,” Sam says, and the only thing that's keeping Dean from shooting them both right that second for impersonating the people he misses the most is the way his arm shakes and the tiny whimper Hope lets out when his breathing stutters. The sound of far-off traffic sweeps through Dean's brain, taking everything with it until all he is is rage, until he can blink his eyes and look at them and be calm because he knows he's going to kill them both.

“You both better run, or I'm going to kill you,” he says, and his voice is steady and cool, but Hope whimpers again, like she can hear the murder underlying it. He wishes he could take her away from this, but he can't move, and these fuckers deserve to die. Right now. As soon as he can get his fingers to work again.

“Dean,” Not-Cas says, and he really, really sounds like Cas, only they got the world weary tone wrong, because he just sounds dead tired. Looks it, too, Dean notices. “We're really us, Dean.”

Dean snorts, because come on.

“Like that's gonna make me believe you,” he says, but he can't look away from Not-Sam's face. He looks tired, too, and like he's been through Hell, which. No.

“Bobby didn't call you?” Not-Sam asks, and damn but his face is all earnest curiosity as he glances down at Hope and then up at Dean's face again. “He said he would, save us from some of the back-from-the-dead rituals.”

The joke falls short, but the glance makes Dean take a step back, turn so Hope is as far away from the door as possible.

“Phone calls can be faked,” he says, and wonders why he hasn't shot them yet. It's not because he still can't move, because he obviously can, and he really should, to get it over with, but they _look_ like them, and they sound like them, and Dean just... He _can't._ He _wants_ to believe them. That's very dangerous.

“Enough of this,” Not-Cas (Maybe-Cas? God, he wants it to be Cas) says, and then there's lightning, and the shadows of wings, and the rumble of thunder, and wow, his neighbors are going to wonder what the hell happened to the weather, and then Cas is stumbling forward, almost falling before Sam catches him.

“Shit,” Sam swears, hoisting Cas up with an arm under his. “You shouldn't have done that, Cas, you're still way too weak.”

Any doubt in Dean's mind is erased when Cas replies.

“Your argument was getting on my nerves.”

He opens his mouth to say something, anything, but Hope did not like the pyrotechnics and is crying as loud as she can, her hands clenched in tiny fists and her face scrunched up in displeasure. Dean doesn't make a conscious decision to lower his gun, but he needs both hands to rock her properly and somehow he knows it's going to be all right now. He takes a step back and nods for Sam to enter, and after grabbing Cas under the knees with his free arm, Sam carries him bridal-style into the apartment, over salt and through devil's traps like they're not even there.

Maybe. Maybe this really is Sam.

Dean has to sit down, so he backs up until his knees hit the couch and he sinks down, all the while rocking Hope as she cries away her fear. He suddenly and viciously wishes for a drink, and the only thing keeping him from getting up and finding one is Hope's hand in his shirt. Sam drags the door shut without disturbing the salt and proceeds to dump Cas on the couch next to Dean.

“Sammy?” Dean says, and his voice sounds like he's five years old, but he doesn't care, because Cas just showed up on his doorstep with Sam, and his throat feels like it's burning, and Sam is smiling at him.

“Yeah, Dean, it's me. Cas got me out.” He gestures at Castiel, who seems to be only half-conscious, judging from his slumped shoulders and the way he just looks at them, saying nothing. “I would hug you, but there seems to be a kid in the way.”

“Sammy,” Dean repeats, and then he's up and they're hugging. It's one-armed and awkward, but Hope stops crying and Dean can feel Sam's heartbeat under his hand, and he never wants to let go. His eyes burn, and he doesn't fight it. He knows neither of them will call him on it.

When they finally pull back, Sam's eyes zero in on Hope again, and Dean's throat tightens even more.

“So who's this?” Sam asks, reaching out a finger to her. His hands look even bigger next to her than Dean's do.

“This is Hope Mary Winchester, your niece,” he croaks, then clears his throat. “Say hi to your Uncle Sam, Hope.”

Sam's eyes are huge as he looks between Hope and Dean.

“She's yours? I mean, I kind of assumed, but...I'm an _uncle_. Hey there, Hope,” he whispers, leaning down so his face is closer to her. “I'm Sam. I'm sorry I missed your birth.”

The wonder in Sam's voice makes Dean look away, which makes him look at Cas, who he's been kind of totally ignoring for a bit now. Cas's eyes are locked on Hope, and while there's tenderness there, more than Dean could have dreamed of, there's also something sad, resigned.

“Where's her mom?” Sam asks, oblivious.

“Down in Oklahoma,” Dean answers, still puzzling over Cas but turning back to Sam. Shit, Sam _is here._

“She doesn't live here?”

“Nah, we're not like that. Never really were. It's a long story.” At Sam's look, Dean snorts. “And I’ll tell you all about it. Later.”

When he looks back at Cas, some of the resignation has left his face, and he meets Dean's eyes when he notices him watching.

“I apologize for not being able to reunite you with Sam sooner,” he says, and he sounds as stiff as a board. “I...miscalculated the effort of retrieving him.”

“Shit, Cas, don't apologize,” Dean protests, but he feels himself relaxing minutely, some of his anger burning away.

“I wanted to spare you the pain,” Cas goes on, like Dean hasn't spoken. “I knew you prayed for me, but I thought... I thought this would be better.”

Dean feels his ears burning, because now that they're both back, he's a little bit embarrassed by some of the prayers he sent Cas's way. Also, there's a lump in his throat the size of Texas, and they need to talk about something else, stat.

“Don't worry about it, Cas. Say hi to my kid instead.” It's not his most subtle of subject changes, but whatever, he's tired. He steps forward, crouching down and holding Hope out. She stares at Cas, and Cas stares at her, and then Cas leans forward. His hand is pale against Hope's skin, his long, slim fingers cupping her head as he leans in to place his forehead against Hope's in an oddly tender gesture. His hair brushes Dean's arm, the heat of his skin palpable without touching it. Hope puts a tiny hand on Cas's cheek, like she's cupping his head right back, and it's one of the most adorable things Dean has ever seen. His heart thaws for Cas a little bit more.

“Hello, Hope,” Cas says solemnly, and then he pulls back. Hope stares at him, like he's the most fascinating thing she's ever seen, and then she giggles and flails, and Dean looks on in wonder as Cas's face breaks out into a smile.

He shoots a look at Sam, who smiles fondly at all of them, and then Dean's phone rings from his bedroom.

“That's probably Bobby,” Sam says, so Dean straightens, his knees clicking and aching a little in a not-so-subtle reminder of wear and tear, and makes his way to the bedroom. He puts the gun on the nightstand to answer the phone, and when he does he tries to not feel exposed.

“Hello?” he says, smiling as Hope flails at him, trying to touch his face and making happy gurgling noises like she wasn't rudely woken up just fifteen minutes ago.

“Dean, I hope you haven't done anything stupid just because I was a little late to call,” Bobby says, just as gruff as usual.

“If by ‘stupid,’ you mean threaten to shoot my newly-returned brother and the dude who saved him, then no, of course not,” Dean says, a grin tugging at his lips.

“Damn it, boy, did you shoot an angel in front of the baby?”

“Nah, just waved my gun around, they're fine,” Dean replies, walking back into the living room where Cas is still sitting on the couch, looking exhausted, while Sam murmurs to him with a worried look on his face.

“'Fine,' sure,” Bobby mutters, and Dean feels a pang of worry that he doesn't let himself dwell on. “Didn’t I tell you you were being stupider than usual about Cas?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean grouches, but now he wishes he'd listened to Bobby when he said that Cas wouldn't just leave like that without a damn good reason. Granted, it had been on day three of Dean's sobriety, so Dean hadn't really cared all that much about anything Bobby had to say. It hasn't come up since, but Dean has a feeling Bobby has been itching to tell him “I told you so” for a while now.

“Tell that fool brother of yours that I say hi, and give Hope a kiss from me, would ya? I'm going to bed.”

After Dean relays Bobby's message to the concerned parties – Hope is back in her cot now, sleepily sucking on her thumb, and Sam collapsed in the arm chair, looking about two seconds away from falling asleep right there – he awkwardly stands in the doorway between the living room and the bedroom and tries to figure out what to do now. Usually, he'd break out the beer in a situation like this – and yes, there have been a lot of situations like this in his life, surprisingly enough – but that's not an option, and it's not like he's gonna offer them _tea_ or anything. He's still Dean Winchester, for god’s sake. He shoots a look at Cas, takes in the way his head keeps nodding, and decides that whatever else they have to say can wait.

“All right, who's sleeping on the couch and who's sleeping in the chair? I’d offer, but there's this kid I have to take care of.”

The slow blink of Cas's eyelids tells him that he's made the right call. Dean might feel like he'll never be able to fall asleep again, adrenaline zipping so fast through his veins that it's giving him motion sickness, but Sam and Cas have no such compunctions and before long, Cas is laid out on his side on the couch, trench coat removed and a blanket thrown over him, and Sam curling up in the chair like it's the most comfortable thing he's slept in in a very long time. Hell, maybe it is. No pun intended. Shit, maybe Dean does need sleep after all.

He goes back to his room, and it's just him and Hope again, but there are sounds of life filtering in through the door and he falls onto his bed feeling less alone that he has in over a year. He's asleep between one heartbeat and the next.

¤¤¤

_Castiel has only slept once in his existence, and he doesn't recall it being like this. Last time, he passed out before he knew what was happening – one second he was staring out the window at the trees passing by, trying to forget how miserable he felt, and the next he was roughly shaken awake by Dean, a painful, tense sensation that made it hard for him to turn his head making itself known. The feeling of impending doom had been even heavier than before he fell asleep._

_This time, he lies on Dean's couch, in Dean's living room, and stares at the dark ceiling. Exhaustion and pain drag at him just as fiercely as weariness and desperation did last time, their claws tearing holes in his thoughts, but there's a difference. There is no fight to fight this time, no imminent battle, no death on the horizon. Dean is safe, has apparently stopped hunting permanently, so he is safer than ever, actually; Sam is as healed in mind and body as Castiel could manage, and there is a new addition to the Winchester family who they can protect and teach._

_Everything is calm, almost peaceful, and Castiel_ hates _it._

_The intensity of the emotion startles him, snatches him away from the grasp of sleep, and he clenches his fists in an attempt to calm down. Dean will not thank him for ruining his couch (and isn't that a bizarre statement, however true it is?). He tries to quell the swell of despair crashing over him, to no avail, and his breathing shudders._

What do I do now?

 _Castiel has always defined himself by his role in the bigger picture, even back when he wasn't actively thinking about it, and now there_ isn't _one. There's no all-encompassing plan, no desperate faith in a losing cause, no last ditch effort to save the world. Just this. Just Sam and Dean and Hope sleeping, secure in the knowledge that they belong in this world, that they have a place here even if there is no fight to be had, and Castiel, who has lost the ability to fly. He has nowhere to go, because his wings can't carry him home anymore._

 _He thought he had made peace with the prospect of never seeing Heaven again when he went after Sam, had grown used to the idea in the months since the beginning of his Fall before they did the impossible and stopped The End. He knew he was turning his back on his brethren once again by choosing these two frustrating humans over going home to help rebuild, but it is one thing to know you might not be allowed back, and another to not be_ able _to go back._

_Maybe they'll heal, he thinks, even as he knows he's just trying to fool himself. That many lost feathers don't just grow back. He's seen it before, in his fallen brethren before they were given the mercy blow, and he remembers the tracks of pain etched permanently in their grace, scoured deep like riverbeds through their very being. He remembers pitying them, even though he wasn't supposed to. Michael had declared that it was what they deserved, and Castiel had believed everything Michael had said back then, but the pity was there nonetheless._

_Exhaustion tugs at him once again, impatient with his adrenaline-fueled thoughts, and Castiel surrenders to it, suppressing doubts and uncertainty with the ease of months of practice. The Winchesters have taught him well._


	3. Chapter 3

For once, it's not Hope's crying or a nightmare's cold terror that wakes him. No, it's the sun shining on his face. For a second, he can't figure out why that is, why his routine is off, and then he sits bolt upright in bed. His gaze lands on Hope, and she's whimpering in her sleep like she does when she's about to wake up and demand food, but that doesn't really tell him if he's finally gone crazy or if Sam and Cas really did show up at his door at four in the morning.

He leaves Hope to sleep for a few more minutes and pads to the bedroom door, carefully nudging it open to peek into the living room. The blinds are drawn so the light is dim, but Dean has no trouble making out Sam snoring away in the armchair, his neck at an awkward angle and his legs spread out like he just has to take up as much room as possible wherever he is. He looks content, a look Dean would never have been able to pull off so soon out of Hell, and he spends a moment wondering what exactly Cas did for Sam that he didn't do for Dean in the healing department. Whatever it is, he's grateful.

The guy in question is lying with his back to the room, his legs drawn up as much as possible in the limited space of the couch, his arms clutching himself like he's trying to keep warm. His fingers dig into his shoulders, the tips white from the force of it, and Dean wonders if he's having a nightmare. He wonders what angels dream about, and then decides that he doesn't envy the guy at all.

Hope's cry of displeased hunger acts as an alarm clock, startling Dean where he's standing and waking both Sam and Cas a bit more forcefully that is probably wise, them being freshly back from Hell and all. At least, that's what Dean assumes. He has no clue of how they even got here, or how long they've been back. He'll have to ask them, as soon as he's taken care of such pressing things as hungry babies and diaper changes.

Once Hope has a fresh diaper and is only letting out the occasional hungry wail, Dean takes her through the living room to get to the kitchen. Sam slaps him on the back on his way to the bathroom, murmuring a sleepy “morning”. The couch is empty, and Dean finds Cas in the kitchen, frowning at the stove like he’s never seen one before. His shoulders are rigid and straight in a way they haven't been since Uriel was promoted over him way back when, and he nods a solemn greeting when Dean steps up beside him, not turning more than his head in Dean's direction.

“You okay, Cas?” Dean asks, pulling a bottle of formula out of the fridge and unscrewing the lid one-handed.

“I am fine, Dean,” Cas replies, watching Dean put the bottle in the microwave like it's the most fascinating thing he's ever seen. “Is that for Hope?”

“Yeah.” Dean nods, rocking her a bit as the microwave hums in the background. She doesn't like being put down in the mornings, which makes cooking breakfast a bitch and a half. It only takes him a few seconds to realize he has a solution to that now. He can only hope that Hope doesn't equate Cas with her cot and starts wailing again.

“Want to hold her while I make breakfast?” he asks, holding her out.

Castiel's eyes shoot up to meet his, and his surprise is clear, but he doesn't hesitate to reach out with gentle hands, supporting Hope's head like he's done nothing but hold babies his entire life. It kind of blows Dean's mind, because this is a goddamn Angel of the Lord, soldier of God, holding his daughter like she's the most fragile thing in the world.

“Good morning, Hope,” Castiel says, his tone identical to the one he usually uses to greet Dean, and Dean can't help but smile.

“Don't drop her, and for god's sake don't teach her any Enochian swears,” he says, getting a pan out of the cupboard. “She's way too young for that.”

Castiel's voice is deadpan as he sits down at the kitchen table, careful not to jostle Hope.

“I doubt she would be able to pronounce them yet, Dean.”

It feels like Dean hasn't laughed in years.

¤¤¤

Sam shoots Dean a faux-wounded look when he realizes Cas got to hold Hope before he did, but then he opens the fridge and has to exclaim over the “not moldy, half-healthy” food in there. He makes it sound like Dean let him starve when they were growing up, which is totally not the case; just look at the guy. Was he really this huge before? Maybe he was lifting weights in Hell?

Shit. Okay, too soon. Dean has to grip the counter and breathe for a second. Sam might be out, but the desperation Dean has been fighting since he watched him jump hasn't settled down yet. It's like his mind knows Sam is safe, but his heart insists on feeling everything as if he isn't.

Cas sits at the kitchen table and holds Hope, not saying a word. He hasn't looked away from her once since he sat down, and Dean would say it was creepy, except that it's actually pretty cute. Cas is wearing this look, half wonder and half wide-eyed fear much like that one time Dean tried to get him to talk to a hooker, and it makes Dean want to laugh. He hates to break it up, but suddenly he craves those eyes on him, like the good old days. _Sorry, kid, your dad needs to steal the angel for a minute._

“Pancakes all right with you, Cas?” he says, which is dumb, because the only thing Cas has ever expressed a liking for is hamburgers, and he's definitely not getting that for breakfast. Dean has some standards. Ish. Well, okay, he sort of developed them after he went and became a dad and realized he didn’t want his daughter dying of malnutrition, but whatever, the point still stands.

It works, though, because Cas looks up and blinks at him, like he's forgotten where is and who he's with. He focuses on Dean after a second, frowning like he's trying to remember what Dean said, but Dean's main objective has been accomplished. The little ripple of warmth that runs through him at the eye contact is still pretty freaking weird.

“I'm sure pancakes are...adequate, Dean,” he says, his eyes flicking from Dean to the stove where Dean has already lined up the ingredients and pulled out a bowl, before returning to Dean again. His frown is confused now, like he can't figure out why he's talking about food, of all things.

“Great,” Dean says. He grins. “Pancakes it is. Unless you have some objection, Sammy? Maybe I should make you a fruity fruit salad?”

Sam rolls his eyes, but he's smiling just as hard as Dean is. He's mocking his brother about food. He'd thought he'd never get to do anything like this again.

“Holy fuck, you're actually back,” he blurts out, stupidly, and then blushes when both Cas and Sam stare at him. “I mean, I knew that. But still. Shit.”

There's a moment where Hope's happy gurgles and the hum of the fridge are the only things filling the silence, and then Sam moves.

“We missed you, too, Dean,” he says, his hand warm and heavy on Dean’s shoulder, and Cas simply nods, like he's comfortable with letting Sam talk for him. Dean takes a breath and goes back to making breakfast.

The microwave beeps, and before Dean can do anything, Sam has commandeered both the bottle and Hope, cradling her in one arm while he makes sure the formula isn't too hot for her to eat. He looks like he's done this forever, which is so weird that Dean has to blink a few times just to make sure he's really seeing what he's seeing. Cas looks on, completely bewildered, his arms kind of stiff at his sides now that he has nothing to hold on to.

“What?” Sam challenges when he catches them looking. “I know how to do this, you know.” He proves his point by adjusting his grip on Hope and feeding her the bottle without a single fumble.

“But _how?_ ” Dean asks, shaking his head. “You look like you've done this forever.”

“Babysitting,” Sam explains. “In college.”

Once upon a time, Dean would have felt a sharp stab of resentment at the mere mention of Sam's college life, but...it's not there anymore. After everything they've been through, after all the betrayal and Hell and the apocalypse, Dean guesses he can't blame Sam for wanting out once upon a time. He still wishes it could have gone down differently – he hasn't forgotten that all of Sam's happiest memories are _without Dean_ – but the abandonment doesn't sting like it used to. Possibly because he's been through worse now. He glances at Sam, notices the dark circles under his eyes, the way he looks away from Hope for a second, closes his eyes and just breathes.

Much worse.

¤¤¤

It takes Dean three days to come down from his adrenaline high. Three days of his heart stuttering every time he turns around and Sam is making a face at him, or Cas is handing him the diapers, or either of them are doing the dishes. Three days of lying awake, just listening to the sounds of life filling his apartment, thinking about how he should get something better than an arm chair and a couch for Sam and Cas to take turns sleeping on, and then a moment of _holy shit they're actually here,_ because he still can't quite believe it.

He calls Missouri that first day, while Cas and Sam are eating mall food and Hope is quietly sleeping in her stroller like the volume in the place isn't earsplitting. Seriously, Dean wants to rip out every speaker in the building. This isn't music. He takes a few steps away from the food court, turning his back to the adorable sight of Sam and Cas staring at Hope as she flails in her sleep. They're just as pathetic as he is; it's comforting.

“Yes, Dean, it's really them,” Missouri says as soon as she picks up, and she sounds both exasperated and happy. Dean didn't know that was possible, but apparently it is.

“How do you know?” he asks, because he may believe it, and Bobby might believe it, but he still needs her to say it. Still needs to hear it.

“Dean, honey, if you really doubted it, you wouldn't have left that baby alone with them for a second,” Missouri points out. “I know you like to second guess yourself, but they're really them, and you should trust that. Be happy for a change.”

Be happy. Right. Sure. He'll get right on that.

“So it's really them?” he tries again, and he can practically feel her roll her eyes through the phone.

“Yes, it's them. Now go enjoy your food. Oh, and Dean?”

“Yeah?”

“Tell Sam that it'll get better, and that he shouldn't trust his memories.”

With that ominous statement, she hangs up. Dean blinks, swallows, and tries to shrug it off. Psychics.

Sam seems excited to hear that he's keeping in touch with Missouri, which leads them into more catching up. (He still hasn't told them about his little visit to the hospital, just showed his “six months sober” badge at Sam and gone to order food, leaving him to explain what it meant to Cas. He's not being a coward; he just doesn't want them to know how bad it got. Not yet.)

Dean doesn't remember to rely her message until later that day. Sam blinks for a few seconds, looking down at the floor, hair falling into his eyes. He looks way too young when he does that, and it breaks Dean's heart, and he has to resist the urge to hug him right there in the middle of the mall.

“Sam? What did she mean?” he asks, looking away when Sam wipes at his eyes. Castiel is standing just out of earshot, the stroller in a firm grip as he regards the window displays of a lingerie store seriously. It almost makes Dean laugh, mostly because of the scandalized looks people keep giving Cas as they walk past, but then he looks back at Sam and forgets all about laughing.

“Lucifer,” Sam whispers, and then seems to realize that Dean is looking at him again. “Lucifer,” he repeats, stronger now. “He... It wasn't like your Hell. I didn't have to torture people, but he... It messed with my memories pretty bad, that place. I...” He looks up at Dean. “I didn't want to leave. When Cas found me. I didn't... I thought I was happy there. Which is just... Dean, it's so fucked up, but I...I miss it.”

Wow, okay. That was not what Dean expected. He clears his throat.

“So...uh, what you're saying is that Lucifer totally Stockholm Syndromed you?”

“I...I guess,” Sam says, eyes drifting to a gaggle of teenagers walking past, their voices loud and their clothes louder. He straightens his shoulders. “Dude, 'syndromed' is not a word.”

All right. Talk over for now, apparently.

“Now it is. I’m certified to make up new words, college boy,” Dean shoots back, and the rest of the day is spent bantering like they haven't in years. It chases the haunted look out of Sam's eyes for a while, so Dean will take it.

Dean ends up buying an air mattress as a temporary solution to their sleeping arrangements, and they don't go home until Hope starts crying out of tiredness. Sam seems to enjoy having people around him – in complete opposite to Dean when he came back from Hell, wanting to hide in a hole for the rest of his life – and while the music drives Dean nuts, he gets a thrill out of teaching Cas all about baby clothing sizes and the dubious joy of window shopping.

When Hope finally demands that they go home, Dean gives in to Castiel’s insistence that he push the stroller and walks a few steps behind him, his shoulder occasionally bumping with Sam’s. He feels weirdly light, like he's going to float off into the cloudy sky, and his lips keep twitching up into a smile for no reason at all.

Dean's had worse days.

¤¤¤

When Dean finally comes down, three days after Cas and Sam knocked on his door, they've settled into something of a routine. Cas and Sam takes turn sleeping on the air mattress in Hope's room (he's still calling it that even though she’s never slept there), Sam and Dean fight over who gets to make breakfast in the mornings while Cas quietly does it behinds their backs, Hope sleeps and eats and cries and giggles and is generally at the center of attention no matter what she does, and somehow they find ways to fill their days.

Hope cries her way through the first half of a walk in the park, not stopping until Cas picks her up and uses some angel communication thing to determine that she’s cold. Dean pulls out an extra blanket and wonders how anyone ever managed to be a parent without angelic assistance.

When they get home, Sam pulls him aside. Dean has been watching Sam like a hawk, a very discreet hawk, for these last three days, and he looks exhausted. He still has rings dark as bruises under his eyes, and Dean has caught him staring off into the distance more than once when he wasn't getting enough mental stimulation. It makes Dean's intestines squirm uncomfortably, but he's trying to give him time. The guy has been to Hell, and he's not just gonna bounce back, no matter what angel mojo Cas pulled on him to get him back to even slightly sane.

All that is on Dean's mind when Sam stops him from following Cas into the bathroom – just to make sure he really knows how to change a diaper, of course; Dean’s not being condescending, it’s just that the guy's only been doing it for three days – which is why he’s so surprised that that isn't what Sam wants to talk about at all.

Sam meets Dean's eyes full on, like he's been working up to this. “I thought we should talk about, you know, the future.”

Dean just blinks for a few seconds.

“The future?” he repeats dumbly.

Sam shifts uncomfortably, but his gaze doesn't waver.

“I just... I want to have somewhere I can call home,” he confesses, his voice strained. “And I want to know how you want to do this, now that we're back. I mean, I want to be as close to Hope as you'll let me, but I get it if...”

“Sam,” Dean says helplessly. How can Sam not get this? “I never want you to leave. I know that sounds creepy, but...you know what I mean, don’t you? I would get us a house right this second, where you could have one floor and Hope and I could have the other, if I thought that was what you wanted. If you haven't noticed, I kind of missed you.”

They don't do this, hugging with no palpable death threat or resurrection tearing their defenses down, but Sam just looks so lost, and then he's pulling Dean in, crushing him against his ribs, and Dean is hugging back for all he's worth, the way he couldn't when Hope was in his arms. He digs his fingers into Sam's back, like he needs it to hurt a little just to keep steady, and Sam squeezes him even harder, until he can hardly breathe, and it's good. It's so good.

They pull away, and Dean looks away while Sam dries his eyes.

“So,” Sam says, his smile wobbly but genuine. “A house.”

“Yeah,” Dean agrees.

Let the house hunting begin.

¤¤¤

“So, Cas,” Dean says, watching as Castiel puts Hope down in her crib for the night. He's so careful with her that it breaks Dean's heart just to look at them, because he's seen those hands fight and punch and clench in anger, but he's rarely seen them be gentle before. “The plan is to get a house, something with a little more room.” He wants to ask ‘Are you staying?' and 'What are you going to do now?' but it feels like revealing too much, like opening himself up in a way that only ever ends with people leaving. He wants Cas to stay, wants him to want to be here, but can't say that. So instead, he goes for something he knows will work. “We could always use a third pair of hands with the kid. I mean–”

“Of course, Dean,” Cas says, smiling down at Hope. Dean doesn't know how to make him look up. Isn't sure why he wants him to.

“Yeah? I don't want to put you out or anything.”

“I am not put out,” Cas says, leaning down to kiss Hope's forehead. It squeezes Dean's heart just as hard as Sam squeezed his ribs earlier, and he has to clear his throat a few times before he can speak again.

“Great. Then that's settled.”

So why does it feel like nothing is settled at all?

¤¤¤

The house hunting leads to a division of labor that Dean isn't sure he likes: Sam talks to the real estate agent, because he's got the people skills to make anyone do anything; Dean scours the Internet and talks to the bank, since he's still officially alive (if under a false name, since he doesn't plan on being arrested anytime soon); and Cas takes care of Hope. Dean doesn't ask him to, isn't really sure he wants to spend any time away from her at all, in fact, but somehow it just works out that way. Cas takes her to the park while Dean is on the phone with this bank guy who has being obnoxious down to an art, and then Dean doesn’t see them again for a few hours, or Dean mentions in passing that they need more milk, and Cas has Hope in her stroller and out the door before Dean even thinks about putting on his shoes.

It makes life easier, no doubt, but Dean misses his kid. It was just the two of them for a little over two months, and to suddenly not have her around twenty-four seven is a bit disconcerting. He knows she's in good hands, knows Cas can take care of her, but the apartment feels empty and cold when it's just Dean and his phone.

Dean sits at the kitchen table one night, going over their finances and trying to figure out how to convince the bank that a job at Starbucks is totally reliable in this economy and pays more than enough to cover the mortgage for an entire house, while Cas cooks dinner. His shoulders are rigid, but Dean has finally managed to talk him out of wearing the trench coat indoors, so he's probably just feeling a bit naked at the moment. Hope is in her carrier on the chair to Dean's right, and Dean absentmindedly offers her a finger when she flails for attention.

Sam finds them like that, the smell of bacon heavy in the air and the low hum of Metallica drifting in from the living room, and he stops in the doorway, crosses his arms, and just looks at them with a fond smile on his face.

“What?” Dean asks when he finally looks up and notices their audience.

“Nothing,” Sam says, waving his hand. “This is all just so...domestic.”

“Shut up,” Dean says, but it lacks heat. “Have you found us a house yet? Because I think I can make up a few more papers and then be done with this money stuff.”

“Hope is going to grow up to be a criminal,” Sam says, shaking his head and taking a seat, his elbow nudging one of Cas's carefully folded napkins. “No way she’ll end up with a normal relationship with the law.”

“At least she'll be a competent criminal,” Dean shoots back, not even looking up. “And Cas would never let her end up in jail, would you, Cas?”

Cas doesn't turn around, only poking at the bacon with a spatula.

“Of course not, Dean.”

“See, nothing to worry about,” Dean says. “Now, house. Spill.”

Sam leans back and an excited smile spreads over his face.

“I think I might have found it,” he says. “It's farther from work than you wanted, but I thought the garage might make up for it.”

“A garage, huh?” Dean asks, interest piqued. “How far are we talking?”

And Sam is off, painting a picture of the house with his hands and his words, his arms flailing in his excitement. Dean listens and asks a million questions, feeling his own excitement rise in response. This is what he's wanted for so long: a house, a family, a job. A normal life. He remembers a time when he would have felt guilty about retiring, would have wanted to help people no matter how tired he was of the life, but one look at Sam's face, one squeeze of Hope's fingers around his own, and it all just fades. Dean has given enough. It's his turn now.

He doesn't realize until much later that night, while he's lying in bed and trying to sleep, that Cas didn't say a single word about the house. Not one.

¤¤¤

They're set to move into the house in two weeks, contracts signed and banks appeased, and Dean is on the laptop ordering furniture so they'll all have somewhere to sleep that first night. Cas is out, again, this time feeding the ducks or some shit. Dean tried to tell him that Hope wouldn't even see the ducks from the stroller, so what was the point, but Cas refused to meet his eye, simply saying that she would enjoy it anyway and leaving, not even asking if Dean wanted to come along. It left a sour feeling in Dean's mouth, one he's trying to suppress by browsing the IKEA website, but all that's done is get him stuck in the kitchen section while he wonders why the Google ad wants him to buy South African wine.

Dean has never liked wine, wouldn't drink it unless the occasional date insisted, but right now it sounds fucking delicious. His throat is dry, and the apartment is empty again, and his hands are shaking a little on the touch pad. He doesn't know what's wrong with Cas, but he can finally admit that there _is_ something wrong with him, and that doesn’t tamp down the thirst that rises up whenever Dean’s alone. It's harder to take his mind off it when Hope isn't there, so he leans back on the couch and tries to think good thoughts. He bets Hope loves the ducks, because Cas probably figured out some way to feed them and hold her so she can see at the same time.

His hands are still shaking, but not as bad, when Sam comes home. Sam takes one look at him and says “Cravings?” and Dean realizes that Sam would know, wouldn't he? Dean forgets sometimes, forgets that he's not the only addict in this family. He nods.

“Yeah, I... There's something wrong with Cas, isn't there?” he asks, because he wants to know if Sam has noticed it too, or if it's all in Dean's head.

Sam sighs and sinks down in the armchair, dragging a hand through his hair.

“Yeah,” he agrees, and Dean's heart sinks. “I thought it might get better, that he was just a little banged up, but...”

“What happened to you guys?” Dean asks when Sam falls silent. He's been dying to ask, but it never seemed like the right time with Sam, and Cas has successfully avoided talking to Dean about anything more serious than Hope and the proper way to inflate an air mattress ever since they got back. “How did he get you out?”

Sam's eyes lose focus, lines forming between his eyebrows, but when he answers, he still sounds way more together than Dean would have expected.

“I'm not sure. I remember the Cage, and Michael and Adam and...Lucifer, and then there was someone pulling me out, only not all of me, and I kind of lost track of things there for a while. Next thing I remember, me and Cas are kind of falling out of the sky, which hurt like a bitch, and then we just lay there for a really, really long time.” Sam looks at Dean, shrugs. “I'm sorry, I have no idea what happened to Cas in Hell, just that he's been off since we got out. Which is why I think you should talk to him.”

Dean winces, looks down at his shaking hands, and heaves a sigh.

“Yeah,” he finally agrees. “I probably should.”

They hear Cas let himself in, the quiet murmur of his voice as he talks to Hope – he always does that, like she can understand everything he's saying – and Sam gets up.

“Okay, good. I'll take Hope shopping for toys, you have a talk with Cas,” Sam decides, which... What?

“What, now?” Dean protests. “I didn't say _now,_ no one said I had to talk to him _now._ And besides, Hope three months old, what kind of toys are you gonna give her?”

“Yes, now. And it never hurts to be prepared. Before you know it, she's gonna be playing with everything she can reach.”

_Before I know it,_ Dean thinks, _she's gonna be moving away from home._ If he wasn't feeling wobbly before, now he's fighting down a wave of sadness at the thought of watching his little kid drive away to college. That, more than anything, snaps him out of it. She's three months old, for Christ's sake; he's being fucking ridiculous. Also, watching her drive off to college will be a nice break from the Winchester tradition.

“Okay. Talking now,” he says, taking a deep breath. “Awesome. I love talking.”

“Think of it as practice. Hope is bound to need a lot of talks in the future,” Sam says, like that's any comfort at all, and claps him on the shoulder.

Sam meets Cas in the hallway, overriding his protests and stealing Hope from him as he shoos him into the living room.

“It's my turn with the kid,” he says, shrugging into his jacket. “I feel like I haven't seen her in days.”

_Yeah, guess how I feel,_ Dean thinks bitterly as he watches Cas fidget in the doorway, seemingly unsure of what to do with his hands.

“Hey, Cas,” he says, shooting a pleading look at Sam and getting what is probably meant to be a supportive nod in return before his brother flees like the coward he is. “We, uh, we need to talk,” he blurts out, and winces. That didn't sound dire at all, nope.

Luckily, Cas has no experience with the kinds of conversations that follow such a statement, so he just agrees and sits down when Dean waves him over.

Cas’s posture is ramrod straight, no trace of relaxation or slump, and Dean fights the urge to snap at him to relax. Snapping is never the way to go when he wants Cas to do something. Stubborn bastard. He's still wearing the same clothes he did the first time Dean met him, sans trench coat, of course, and Dean spends a second wondering how they've managed to stay clean for so long. Does Cas have a heavenly dry cleaner built in? Maybe his clothes are protected from dirt by angelic grace, and if so, isn't that a waste of resources?

“Dean?” Cas prompts, and Dean starts. Right. Talking. Wonderful.

“Yeah, I, uh, was wondering how you were doing?” Great start, Winchester. Stellar work.

Cas just blinks at him, and that's another thing – since when is Cas _mild?_

“Okay, see, you’re freaking me out right there,” Dean exclaims. “You've been acting all not-you since you got back – you haven't bitched about a single thing, you've barely put up a fight no matter how much I’ve been provoking you, you keep doing things I haven't even asked you for like you're some kinda house elf, and this whole Gandhi routine you're pulling now is freaking me the fuck out!”

Castiel blinks at him again, his face blank, and doesn't say anything for several seconds. Then he looks away.

“I apologize, Dean, I did not mean to cause alarm.”

Which doesn't help _at all._

“Seriously, what's wrong with you? Did Lucifer steal your balls while you were rescuing Sam or something?” Dean blurts out, all tact forgotten in the face of Cas acting so fucking strange.

At the mention of Lucifer's name, Castiel looks back at him sharply, that old, familiar expression of extreme annoyance returning to his face for a second. Dean hadn't realized he missed it until he sees it again, and it almost makes him smile.

“Do not speak of things you do not understand,” Cas says, low and pissed off. Finally, they're getting somewhere. Dean crows internally, making a mental fist pump because he's awesome at this talking thing and anyone who says differently can just go screw themselves. And then it's like Cas remembers himself, because he sits up straight, places his hands in his lap, and puts on his neutral expression like nothing happened.

Still, Dean knows how to rile him up now, and it's just like old times, when he'd run his mouth just to crack through that Heavenly Warrior façade and get to what he knew was beneath. He wonders what it says about him that he used to piss off an angel for fun, smiting and Hell-threats be damned.

“Oh, so he did, huh? Big brother beat you up? Did he steal your lunch money?” Dean says flippantly, and Castiel's upper lip draws up in a hint of a snarl. Damn. It sends an unfamiliar thrill through Dean, but he doesn't have time to identify it because Cas is standing up, his fists clenched and his eyes like thunderclouds on the horizon – dark and threatening of bad things to come. If it wasn't for the fact that Dean knows Cas won't hurt him (well, he's pretty sure, anyway; it _has_ been known to happen, but that was a totally different situation), he would be scared. He knows what Cas can do.

“As you insist on bringing up his name, yes, Lucifer 'beat me up,' Dean. And worse. But that's not why I've–” He falters, shrugs his shoulders in an oddly birdlike move, and winces in pain. Dean doesn't like that wince one bit. Doesn't like the grimace that follows, like Cas regrets showing him even that much weakness. “It was Hell, Dean. I'm an angel. I'm not supposed to spend any time there, and my grace did not take kindly to it.”

“But you've been there before,” Dean challenges, curiosity translating into attitude on the way from his brain to his mouth. “You weren't anything like this the last time.”

“The last time, I had back-up; I had the blessing of the Host, and you weren't nearly as deep as Sam was. That doesn't mean it didn't damage me, though. You just never asked.”

The last part hits home, and now Dean is pissed for real. That's the thing – this riling up business never stays one-way for very long, and Dean has no idea how Cas knows just which buttons to push to make him lose it in three seconds flat.

“Yeah, well, you never told me, either, so don't go all martyr on me,” he snaps, getting to his feet. “I guess that wasn't something you felt the need to share with the class, even though you knew fucking _everything_ about me, even though you were–”

“Were what, Dean? What? Your ally? Allies don't share everything, I had no reason to–”

“We were _friends,_ you asshole! I guess you don't know what that means, but hey, neither do I, since guess what? You were the first friend I ever had. But sure, no, we were allies, no need to tell the stupid human anything.”

Dean has no idea how they went from 'What's wrong with you and why are you acting like a Stepford wife' to declarations of past friendship, but here they are, and he's too pissed to care.

Cas is silent for a moment, his face unreadable, his fists still clenched and his whole body stock still, like he's holding himself back from punching Dean in the face. Dean kind of wishes he'd stop holding back, or he's going to keep going with these embarrassing decelerations until there's nothing left of his dignity.

“What?” he spits.

“Were?” Cas says, and his voice isn't exactly vulnerable, but it isn't invincible, either.

“What?” he says again, more confused than angry now.

“You said we _were_ friends,” Cas says. His face is still unreadable, but his hands have lost some of their tension, even if they're still tightly fisted.

“Oh, yeah, well, I have no idea what we are now, since you won't even fight with me like a normal person,” Dean says. His throat feels weird, like he's swallowed something big that's lodged itself there. “I mean, how am I supposed to talk to you when you're acting like the butler, cleaning up and watching the baby? It's pissing me off.”

Castiel's mouth twitches at that, and Dean is stunned into silence. Was that a _smile?_

“What?” he says again, but this time the curiosity stays curious all the way from brain to mouth.

“It seems my efforts had the opposite effect I was hoping for, then,” Castiel says, like that makes any sense whatsoever. Dean's face must show how fucking confused he is, because Castiel volunteers more information. Will wonders never cease? “I was making an effort to please you in order to keep from being thrown out. I do not feel I would do very well on my own in the human world.”

And Dean is pissed again.

“You thought we'd just throw you out? Seriously, Cas? What the fuck? After everything you've done for us? I mean, you _got me Sammy back_. How could I throw you out after that?”

“I found that I did not want to take the risk,” Cas says, and he's not looking at Dean, his eyes downcast and his shoulders slumped. Dean can't help but think of a kicked puppy. He'd probably better not tell Cas that, though. “I have nowhere else to go. I have hardly any grace left, and I...”

“And you?”

“I wasn't sure how long rescuing Sam would be enough,” Cas admits, the words sounding like they’re being wrenched out of him.

Dean takes a second to reel at the words, at the implications, at the fucking stupidity of it all. Seriously, if this is what not talking gets him, he can kind of see the point.

“Cas,” he says slowly, because this is important, damn it. And no, this is not the fucking time to be thinking about a drink, for fuck's sake. “You don't have to buy a place here. You never did.” He takes a breath. If he can't say it now, he'll never be able to, and he's no coward. “You're family. You've been family for a long time now.” He hopes Cas knows what that means to Dean, because he can't think of any other way to express it. “You're like a brother to me, okay? I told Hope you're her uncle long before you returned, and I meant it.”

Dean has never seen this particular brand of Stone Face on Cas before, but somehow he knows what it means, and his smile is wobbly at best when he reaches out, places a hand on Cas's shoulder. It takes a while, but Dean feels his muscles relax in increments, going from steel to something more human. His facial muscles don't move, but he somehow manages to impress his gratitude and happiness anyway, and that thing is back in Dean's throat. Cas nods, once, and Dean nods back, and that's it.

There's such a thing as too much talking, after all.

¤¤¤

It isn't until later that night, when everyone has gone to bed and Dean has finished making 'the rounds' (is it still 'the rounds' if there's only one lock to check and you live on the third floor? Whatever, Dean wants to call it 'the rounds'; It sounds all fatherly and domestic) that Dean wonders what Cas had meant when he said his grace hadn't taken kindly to Hell. And just how badly Lucifer had hurt him, if he was still wincing about it. His gut roils at the thought of how lonely Cas must have felt when he expected Dean and Sam to throw him out on a moment's notice.

How must it have felt to Cas, spending all his time tiptoeing around them and being as unobtrusive as possible? Dean remembers every time Cas chose Hope's company over theirs, and it makes much more sense now. He knew he couldn't offend her, which meant he could be himself for a while and still have company.

There's this ache in Dean's chest, and no matter how he lies, it won't go away.

He'll check on Cas, just once, to make sure he's sleeping okay, and then he'll be fine.

Hope doesn't even stir when he gets up and sneaks to the door, and he's grateful she seems set on sleeping for a few hours still. Sam is snoring on the couch, his arm thrown over the side and dragging on the floor, and he's making the furniture around him look ridiculously small just by existing. Something in Dean eases just by looking at him, and he wonders how long it will take him to stop expecting Sam to be gone every time he looks for him.

Cas has left the bedroom door open, and Dean wonders if that's an invitation or just Cas wanting the sounds of human sleep to keep him company. He pokes his head in – he'll just look, see that Cas is sleeping, and then leave him alone – and almost jumps three feet in the air when Cas is looking right at him, lying there on the mattress in the dark.

“Jesus,” he hisses, almost drawing his head back on instinct. Something in Cas's eyes makes him stop, though, and instead he slips inside, closes the door so they won't wake Sam. He'll hear Hope if she starts crying, so he doesn't feel too bad about it.

“Dean,” Cas says, and it's weird, hearing him whisper. Dean isn't sure he's ever done that before.

“Hey, Cas, sorry, I just wanted to check on everyone. Just being paranoid,” Dean babbles, rubbing the back of his neck. He's not sure if he should call Cas on the look he's wearing or not. Isn't one talk per day enough?

“I am fine. You can go back to bed,” Cas says, only it sounds a whole lot like 'please stay,' so Dean leans back against the wall, slides down until he's sitting on the floor.

“Can't sleep?” he asks, leaning his elbows on his knees and pretending like his joints aren't aching from the position. He's only 31, but there's only so much abuse a body can take before it starts to protest.

“No,” Cas admits, but he doesn't say anything else, just stares at Dean from where he's burrowed down under the covers. All Dean can see of him are his eyes and his hair, and he pretends he doesn’t find that adorable.

“Any particular reason?” Dean prods. Seriously, it's like pulling teeth.

Cas is silent for a minute, and then he sighs and shifts, pulling himself into a sitting position.

“I hurt,” he says, shrugging in that strangely bird-like way again. “My wings, they...” He seems to make up his mind about something before he goes on. “I lost all my feathers when I was in Hell.”

“Shit,” Dean breathes, even though he has no idea how bad that is. He was under the impression angel wings weren't, you know, actual wings, anyway. Apparently he was wrong.

“Indeed,” Cas agrees, even though he sounds vaguely amused at Dean's word choice. “It is much more painful than I expected.”

“Aren't they growing back? I thought you guys could heal anything.” There's guilt trying to creep into Dean's mind, sneaking through cracks he didn't even know were there, and he fights against it, tries to stopper the cracks with thoughts of Hope, of Sam – shit, Cas brought Sam back for Dean, and now he's lost all his feathers, and it's all because of Dean – but it's no use. The only thing that he ever found that helped fight the guilt was whiskey.

“Hell has a damaging effect on grace. I lost some feathers when I raised you, and they never grew back. I don't think these will, either.” Cas sounds resigned, and Dean feels ill all of a sudden.

“You mean they're gonna hurt for the rest of your life?”

“Most likely, yes.”

“Jesus, Cas.” Think of Hope. No drinking, never again, no matter how bad it gets, remember? Dean takes a breath, another one. Swallows. “Is there anything I can do?”

Cas looks at him, and Dean's brain stutters to a halt, thoughts of whiskey and pain swept away, because Cas is _smiling_ at him.

“You have already done it,” he says. “I have never had... I did not know friendship could feel like this.”

Dean lets out a long breath, takes in the smiling angel on his air mattress, and feels something in him relax, just like it did when he checked on Sam.

“Yeah, me neither, buddy.”

They sit like that for a long time, the silence comfortable between them and Dean's mind finally, finally at ease.

It might seem impossible, but somehow, Dean knows they’ll be okay.

¤¤¤

The house isn't huge; it isn't fancy, or the height of modernity. The wooden floors are scuffed by generations of feet, the walls need new coats of paint, the stairs creak on every other step, and Dean loves it. It feels more like a home than the apartment ever did, and he brushes a hand over the banister, feels the silky smooth wood against his still-rough palm. He hears Sam shouting to Bobby outside, something about turning it on its side or it'll never fit, and he smiles like an idiot at the empty house. He picks up the box he'd put down when he first got in, one marked KITCHEN in Cas's elegant, if somewhat unintelligible script, and makes his way through the hallway, finding the angel in the kitchen with two boxes in his arms like they weigh nothing.

”Hey, should you be lifting stuff?” Dean asks, placing his own box on the counter. The surface is water stained but clean, wooden like the rest of the house.

”I am perfectly capable of carrying boxes, Dean,” Castiel says, not putting his burden down. He's looking out the window, seemingly content to stand there like a statue. Dean shakes his head fondly, taking one of the boxes out of his arms.

“I know that, dude, but doesn't it make the pain worse?”

“No,” Cas says, so Dean shrugs.

“Okay then. What are you looking at, anyway?” Dean cranes his neck to try to see what's in Cas's line of sight.

“I was just thinking...” Cas breaks off, putting down the box at last, shrugging his shoulders like he's settling his wings. It's something he's taken to doing since their talk, and Dean wonders how often he held himself back from that very gesture when he was trying to hide his pain. “I would like to try growing something,” he finally finishes, a pensive look on his face as he stares out the window.

“What, like flowers?”

“No. Vegetables. I want to grow vegetables.” It sounds like he’s coming to a decision right that second, so Dean nods.

“Cool. I have no idea how do to that, but Sam could probably find you a book or something.”

Cas gives him a small smile, just a twitch of lips and a softening around his eyes, and Dean grins back at him. Then there's a crash from outside and Bobby's colorful cursing fills the air. It's soon joined by the wail of a newly awakened baby, and Dean rolls his eyes.

“C'mon, lets go prevent World War III,” Dean says. “Bobby sounds like he's about to bring out the shotgun.” He hopes they didn't break anything important, like Dean's bed, or there’ll be hell to pay.

Cas follows him out of the kitchen, the wooden floor creaking, his presence solid and warm at Dean's back, and they go to save the day.

It’s much later, the house full of boxes and furniture in strange places - the couch ended up in the dining room for the time being, since the living room is too cluttered - and Dean is sitting in the kitchen, coffee cup in one hand, baby monitor in the other. He texted Carla earlier to let her know he’d moved again, and that Hope was fine, and her snarky reply made him smile. He wonders how he’ll explain Sam’s resurrection when she comes to visit next month, but he’s not too worried about it. Lying, he’s good at. 

Cas is in the garden, communing with nature or mapping out a blueprint for the vegetable patch. Dean can see him through the window, his neck bent down as he stares at the ground, his steps slow and deliberate, and he wonders how he can see anything with the sky rapidly darkening now that the sun has set.

If he cranes his neck, Dean can just make out Sam’s head over the back of the couch in the dining room. He’s reading something big and complicated, and his forehead had been creased in concentration when Dean walked past him earlier. 

Bobby has gone to bed, and Dean imagines he can hear his snores through the ceiling if he listens hard enough. Everything is quiet, calm, and Dean imagines more nights like this, nights full of people but still tranquil; he imagines Hope growing up in this house, and he finds that he can’t wait to get started on this new life they’ve somehow made for themselves. He knows they have time, though, and right now, he’s exhausted. 

Dean goes to bed.

THE END


End file.
